Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Reviews

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is used for sales, purchasing inventory, manufacturing, advancing fixed assets, document integration, and now there is also a service module. This solution is now called Business Central, but it's the same product. 

I have implemented Microsoft Dynamics both on cloud and on-premises, but the company I work for now has it deployed on-premises.  

All of the features are valuable, depending on where you implement them. I've done implementations in 60 countries, across 86 different companies and groups, and each company has a different reason for why they want to use it. Every single feature that I've implemented has been successful, and for some companies, where they didn't use the functionality, they have moved to external products or they've integrated into other applications. 

Microsoft Dynamics NAV could be improved in terms of exporting income statements and balance sheets. Currently, there is a feature, but you can only have the last three years. I spent some time trying to improve the KPI portion that exports the data, that already calculates the sub forms or subtotals, but they weren't able to break that up into different dimensions. They've now managed to crowd the separate table and you can export that, but it's only for the last three years. So, they could improve this solution by getting the chart of accounts or the account schedules to be exported, where you can go further than just three years with it. 

I have been using this product for 21 years. 

I'd say Microsoft Dynamics NAV is stable. 

The SQL portion does require some maintenance. From an operational perspective, you do need to do some housekeeping to keep it up to date. In terms of maintenance, the only maintenance that you really need, from a consultant perspective, is if you want to upgrade to a new version or if you want to implement new features from the new cumulative update. But it's not really regarded as maintenance—it's more of an upgrade. 

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is very easy to scale, as long as you understand the limitations of the product. There is a bit of a problem if too many people try and pro-post simultaneously to the general ledger. You do get locked out sometimes. So, you have to look at the size of the company—and you can add as many companies as you want—but when you go over 250 users, you have to start looking at a larger product. It's significantly scalable, but there is a limit to how many users per company you should have before you start getting performance issues. 

I specialize in the manufacturing companies, but I've implemented this solution for companies of all sizes. 

I think that Microsoft's technical support is extremely good, but that's just because I used to deal directly with the development team at Microsoft and I used to present at events. From my experience, it's very good. There have been some instances where they didn't get it right, but the majority of the time—I'd say 99% of the time—they give good advice. 

From a business intelligence perspective, I have connected or created cubes or analytics services from multiple databases, anything from SAP, Pascal, JD Edwards, Oracle, Cognos, Executive Viewer. For ERP, I'm only working with Dynamics NAV and Business Central. 

I'm regarded as an expert, so the initial setup was easy because I've worked with it for so long and I've done so many implementations. Past partners still use me as a resource that they can lean on if they have any issues with their solutions. For me, I think the product is quite easy, but that is purely because of the experience and knowledge that I have about the product. 

I have implemented this solution myself. 

The cost is one of the benefits. If you don't want to go for the full-blown finance and operations, the pricing model is a lot cheaper and has now switched to being based on a per-user subscription. So, if it's on cloud, you now have an expense instead of a large CapEx. If it's on-prem, you obviously still have to continue with the licensing model that they have, but if you compare the features and functionality, in terms of the price that you pay, I find it's better than other products. 

My answer on the pricing would be slightly different, depending on the country you're in and the return on investment, based on the size of the company. It's well-priced internationally. I think the new model is priced even better because it's now subscription-based and, if you go for cloud, the return on investment is a lot quicker and if it's expense, you can cap it. If you do take the on-prem version, the licensing is still priced as what it used to be, so that would depend on what country you are in. 

My rating is biased because I'm a Microsoft resource, but I rate this solution a 10 out of 10. 

To those looking into implementing this solution, I would first advise you to do your research. Make sure that the product does what you want it to do. You also need to understand the limitations of the product. If you want a payroll system, it's not a payroll system. You need to know these kinds of things. 

Its use cases depend on the country. It is generally used for enterprise resource management and sales and marketing.

There are both on-prem and cloud deployments.

It is easy to use, and it works very well for small-scale companies.

I would like a more modular and user-friendly interface.

I have been using it for about three years, but the company has been using it for more than 10 years.

I am satisfied with its performance and stability.

We have around 300 users. It fits small-scale companies very well.

We have sometimes contacted them through the vendor. They are very fast in dealing with their support.

We were not using any other solution previously. NAV was here from the beginning of time. It is a very old one, and it has developed over time.

It is very easy to implement.

We did use some technicians. Usually, you need functional and technical experts for it.

The number of people required varies. It is on a small scale for us. So, two people are enough for us. We have an expert in Navision, and we also have a technical expert who can do the backend.

Its licensing is yearly. In addition to the licensing cost, there is the cost of hosting on Azure.

I would recommend this solution to others. I would rate it a nine out of 10.

We use Dynamics in the manufacturing industry. 

We like the manufacturing and case management modules.

The Power BI integration could be more seamless.

We just updated to Dynamics six months ago. 

I rate Dynamics 365 eight out of 10 for stability. 

Dynamics 365 is scalable. 

We mostly rely on our service provider for support. For some issues, we consult the forums to see what other users are saying.

Dynamics 365 is easy to deploy. We migrated from another version of the solution with the help of a partner. 

We pay an annual license.

I rate Microsoft Dynamics 365 nine out of 10. I recommend it for anyone who needs an ERP. It's a robust, scalable system that's easy to use and integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products. 

We use this solution for finance purposes. We're using a version from 2020.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

There are about 10 people using this solution in my organization.

It's quite reliable, and there's a good local provider who can adapt the solution for tax issues.

This solution can be used in combination with Microsoft Office 365 with the cloud version.

We want to use this solution for our entire production company. We want to expand to other functions of the ERP, but it isn't a good solution for production companies.

I would like to see some quality control and quality assurance. It's very hard to find anything except SAP, so we have to find a special solution.

I have worked with the solution for 18 years.

It's quite stable. We don't have any issues with bugs.

For a big company like us with millions of transactions, the scalability isn't enough. For example, we were thinking of going to Dynamics for multi-transactions, MPS, and MRP, but this isn't enough. It's scalable but only up to a certain point.

We have technical support through our partner, but the solution provided by Microsoft is stable. We always have problems with add-ons locally, which are necessary for local taxes. Microsoft is making a Central Europe package, which should comply with tax laws in Central European countries. Our local provider is making one more add-on to be compliant with these local tax issues. There are several issues, especially with the speed.

We have also used a solution called Glovia. Their financial solution wasn't very good for Czech tax, and there was no support for Czech taxes so we had to cut it. Now, we have two systems, but we just want to use one. We don't know if Business Central can be expanded or if something else will have to be deployed.

Initial setup is quite easy. Deployment took six months.

We deployed it together with our current ERP system, which wasn't good for the financial system. We analyze the structure and which functions to transfer to Microsoft.

The function is for bank connections. If you install just the finance part, it's quite straightforward. You have a chart of accounts, set up the connection with the ERP or with the other softwares, and set up the connections for the next processes, which use the data from Microsoft. Then, you connect to the data warehouses for Power BI or other reporting platforms. Of course, the biggest issue is that 80% of the time involves evaluation.

The biggest issues are quite easy to set up but small things delay the perfect process.

We need two people for deployment: one IT person and one in finance. It's not difficult to maintain the solution.

The license changes every year. Sometimes it's for fixed users, and sometimes it's for concurrent users.

I would rate the solution as seven out of ten. 

My advice is to check the solution for local taxes and check to see if it covers the material flow for production needs, like ordering, planning, sales, and purchasing.

We need to find a provider who will be a good support. The right consultant and support is very essential.

For my clients, the most important feature of Microsoft Dynamics NAV has been the workflows, including how organized the information flows across. That has been the key reason for the entire migration, and why my clients have been using Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

My clients have multiple business areas, and each business area is independent and uses Microsoft Dynamics NAV. It's not like one license is being used across business units. Now my clients are trying to remove all of that, in particular, remove all those multiple systems and bring them into one omnichannel.

For me, the main strengths of Microsoft Dynamics NAV are that it's user-friendly and light. These are its major wins. I have used other ERPs and their architecture were a little more complex when compared to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV architecture. The solution is customizable and user-friendly, and these are the key elements that I like best about Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

One of the main areas my clients had concerns with was the reporting function of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and it probably depends on what level of licensing clients have. These are not complex users, and I'm not talking about millions of cases or tickets. This is a very limited number of users who felt that reporting is one of the areas for improvement in the solution.

Each department has gone and bought tools independently, and there's no interdepartmental communication, so another pain point is integrating Microsoft Dynamics NAV with other tools. There are so many systems running, so it's not entirely the fault of Microsoft Dynamics NAV why some customers are moving. It could be because prior business decisions were different from what they are now.

Another pain point or area for improvement was that any request that had come from the website had to go through an e-form which was then plugged into Microsoft Dynamics NAV. There was no direct data capture. That was the pain point, where clients had to build e-forms, and that caused delays in transactions and getting information. I'm unsure if the design was incorrect, so I'm unable to comment on it, but that is one of the pain points or areas for improvement in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

I find Microsoft Dynamics NAV stable. It's fluid and stable enough for the loads my customers are using. I can't comment beyond that. There are one hundred fifty to twenty thousand tickets a year, and based on that volume, the solution is stable. There's no problem with it.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is scalable. I like it. It's light and fast enough. I don't know why some customers are migrating. They can upgrade Microsoft Dynamics NAV or modify certain elements if they can and use it, as opposed to moving to another solution.

My clients had no technical issues and their usage was also limited, so they didn't contact the technical support team of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Based on their usage, raising tickets, or anything about flow, there were no problems.

I have not done a setup for Microsoft Dynamics NAV before. I have only worked on my existing projects but have not set up the solution, so I have no comment on how straightforward or complex the setup is.

We didn't compare Microsoft Dynamics NAV with other ERP systems. What we are trying out is an enterprise booking tool that will replace Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

I have experience with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, but not with IFS.

I'm currently doing a project with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. I'm a consultant who works with migration tools. For example, in 2011 and 2015, I worked on migration projects and did migrations over to new platforms.

Currently, I have under twenty-five users of Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

I don't know what the maintenance fees of my clients are. The reasons for them changing to a different solution have nothing to do with the product, with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. It's a change in the business model. The pricing for the product is not the reason why clients are switching over, for example, one was buying a house, and now everybody is getting together and buying one solution.

I'd give Microsoft Dynamics NAV a rating of six from my exposure to it and what I've learned about it from end-users and its limitations.

My company is a partner of Microsoft.

Microsoft products are very good in general. This product is flexible, easy to use, intuitive, and has good capabilities. The solution does well in India because of the solid brand Microsoft has created.

The solution is not best suited for larger-scale businesses. The features are lacking, there could be more add ons available. There are some other areas that are lacking but there are separate solutions for those other areas not covered in this solution. For example, field services and CRM are in Dynamic 365 and there is no BI feature but there a separate application for that called Power BI.

I would like to see some project related feature in upcoming releases of the application. Some companies are professional service companies and they can also be project-based. Having some projects features would be helpful. If they are not including manufacturing, then at least they can add features for project-based companies.

I have been using this solution for 13 years.

We had some issues with the stability with NAV2016. There were times when it would crash when we were doing a high amount of data entry.

The solution is best suited for small businesses especially those offering services and distribution.

There has not been an updated version of this solution since NAV2016 here in India. Microsoft is releasing the replacement on April 1st, 2021 called Business Central and we already have many customers that are going to migrate.

The installation is easy.

We did the implementation of the solution.

I have some subscription-based customer and a few customers who have perpetual licenses that hosted the application on the cloud.

If I was going to rate the solution in terms of global positive effectiveness, I would give it an eight out of ten. However, if I was going to rate it out of the sum of features and functionality, then I would rate it a four or five. 

Overall, I rate Microsoft Dynamics NAV a six out of ten.

We use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as CRM. 

The product should improve work optimization. 

My company has 1000 users. 

I rate Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central a nine out of ten. 

We are using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for Microsoft Excel to track all business-related data.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is its ease of use, data customization, and smooth integration.

There are some aspects of the solution that is complex.

I have been using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for approximately three months.

The stability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is great. There is always a potential security issue. 

I rate the stability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central a nine out of ten.

The solution is highly scalable.

We have approximately one or two people using the solution in my organization.

I have not used the vendor's support.

I have not used a solution similar to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

The initial setup is simple. We did the implementation for the complete solution within one month.

The price of the solution could be reduced to improve their offering.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central a nine out of ten.