Overview
Business Central unifies your general ledger, AP, AR, inventory, and reporting in a single Microsoft platform, so your team stops reconciling between QuickBooks, spreadsheets, and point tools and starts working from one source of truth.
We implement it around how you operate: your chart of accounts, your approval workflows, your billing model, and your reporting. The result is a finance function that closes faster and a leadership team that can see the numbers in real time.
How We Work
Discovery and design
We map your chart of accounts, workflows, and reporting needs, then design a Business Central environment around them.
Implementation
We configure, migrate your data, integrate your other systems, and train your team by role before a staged go-live.
Run and improve
After go-live we stay on as your application partner: support, tuning, and a roadmap that grows with the business.
What's Included
Financial management
GL, AP, AR, bank reconciliation, and native sales tax, configured to your chart of accounts and close process.
Approval workflows
Role-based approvals and segregation of duties so the right people sign off and field staff never see what they should not.
Reporting and dashboards
Real-time financial reporting and budget-versus-actual, with no manual consolidation across systems.
Inventory and orders
Purchasing, inventory, and order management connected directly to your financials.
Clean data migration
A clean cutover from your legacy system, with the historical data you need and none of the clutter you do not.
Training and hypercare
Super-user training and post-go-live hypercare so your team owns the system with confidence.
The First 90 Days
A typical SMB implementation runs 12 to 20 weeks end to end, so day 90 lands in testing, with go-live in sight.
A design you can hold us to
- Chart of accounts and dimensions designed around your reporting needs, because reporting is the reason ERP systems exist.
- Your workflows documented as they run today, order to cash and procure to pay.
- Every gap Business Central will not cover natively gets named, with the add-on product and its licensing quoted before you commit to the build. No surprise line items at month four.
Build in the open
- Environment, security model, and role-based permissions, so finance sees finance and the floor sees the floor.
- Financial core, then the item master and inventory structure.
- The integrations your revenue runs through: e-commerce, shipping, EDI, payment settlement.
- A weekly status call, and features turned on as they are ready rather than saved up for one big reveal.
Prove it, then cut over
- User acceptance testing scripted from your team's real scenarios, with your real data.
- Role-based training for finance, operations, and quality, timed close to go-live so it sticks.
- Data load, cutover, and 30 days of hypercare, where most questions should be how-to questions because the broken things got caught in testing.
Implementation Options
Three ways to start, depending on how much certainty you want before you commit. Estimates and rates are quoted in your proposal.
T&M Implementation
- The full implementation on time and materials, billed to actual hours as consumed
- A written estimate up front, revisited at every phase gate
- Design and build run in parallel: the blueprint evolves while early phases are already being delivered
- Scope stays flexible, with changes approved through a written change order
- Simpler footprints with a clear picture of their requirements
- Teams comfortable steering scope as the work unfolds
Fixed-Fee Discovery & Design
- The first phase of a full implementation, run as a standalone engagement with its own deliverables (we call it Phase 0)
- Current state documented, future state designed, and the implementation blueprint delivered
- A fixed-fee implementation proposal, priced against confirmed scope
- Deliverables are platform-agnostic, not tied to Microsoft or to us, and detailed enough for any qualified partner to quote a fixed fee
- The fee is credited in full toward the implementation if you proceed with us within three months
- Complex or unclear scope, where guessing is expensive
- Boards and leadership teams that prefer the certainty of a detailed roadmap and fixed-fee scope before implementation kicks off
Fixed-Fee Implementation
- Follows a completed Discovery & Design engagement
- The implementation at a fixed price, quoted against the scope confirmed in discovery and design
- Milestone billing tied to deliverables you can verify
- Change orders only when the scope itself changes
- Budget certainty required before kickoff
- Regulated or board-governed purchases
Support & Training Options
Go-live is the start of the relationship, and how much of it you hand to us is your call. Flat-fee plans run on a rolling 90-day commitment; T&M support carries no commitment.
T&M support & training
- Support billed hourly, as you need it, with no monthly fee
- Escalation straight to the team that built your system, including your solution architect
- Training sessions on request: new hires, refreshers, or a deep dive on one module
- Minor configuration changes scoped in writing before work starts
- Larger teams with dedicated in-house Dynamics resources
- Staff comfortable with a self-service approach
- Teams looking for escalation support and occasional training
Flat-fee Dynamics support & training
- Reduced professional services rates for your implementation
- SLA-backed unlimited support during business hours
- Minor modifications to existing configurations
- Training for new hires, in place of building an in-house training function
- Training on new Microsoft wave releases: updates ship twice a year, announced in advance, and we prep your team before each one lands
- Smaller teams without dedicated in-house Dynamics resources
- Leadership that prefers flat-fee simplicity and wants staff to ask for help without watching a meter
- Teams with predictable growth plans and support needs
Fully managed Dynamics & IT support
Everything in the flat-fee Dynamics support & training option, plus managed IT services:
- Our lowest professional services rates for your implementation, as part of a holistic ongoing engagement
- Microsoft 365 administration
- Endpoint monitoring, patching, and security configuration
- Security monitoring, threat response, and email security
- IT vendor and license management
- vCIO strategic advisory
- Helpdesk and level 1, 2, and 3 support for staff
- SLA on system-blocking issues
- Teams without dedicated in-house Dynamics and IT support staff
- Companies that prefer a single outside partner across their entire IT footprint, from applications through general IT operations
Who This Is For, and Who It Is Not
A strong fit if
- You are a distributor, light manufacturer, or product business roughly 10 to 200 people, outgrowing QuickBooks, Inflow, or a legacy Dynamics system.
- You need lot, batch, or serial traceability that would survive a recall.
- You operate under FDA, or similar, rules and parts of production still run on paper.
- You have a stalled or partner-abandoned Business Central implementation that needs a rescue, and admin access back in your own tenant.
- You are pre-revenue but funded, and you want the foundation in before the growth.
A poor fit if
- QuickBooks still fits how you operate. Staying on it is the right call until the workarounds cost more than the platform.
- You need enterprise-scale multi-entity master data management. Business Central has a ceiling there, and that calls for a larger platform.
- You need to be live in four weeks. A well-run implementation takes longer, and we only commit to timelines we can deliver.
Frequently Asked Questions
All questionsWhat is Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Business Central is Microsoft's ERP (enterprise resource planning) system for small and mid-sized businesses. It runs your general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, inventory, purchasing, and orders in one cloud system, so the numbers your business runs on live in one place instead of five.
How much does Business Central cost?
Licensing is per named user, per month, on an annual commitment. Full users sit on one of two tiers: Essentials covers finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, and projects, and Premium adds service management and manufacturing. You choose one tier for the whole company rather than mixing them. Team Members is a cheaper license for people who only look things up or approve. Add-on apps and Copilot Credits for the AI agents are billed separately. Microsoft publishes current rates on the Business Central pricing page.
How is Business Central different from QuickBooks?
QuickBooks records what happened; Business Central runs the operation. Once you need inventory that reconciles, approval workflows, multiple entities, or a month-end close that holds up, QuickBooks needs a web of spreadsheets and add-ons around it. Business Central replaces the web, and it scales without replatforming. We wrote a fuller guide on when to graduate off QuickBooks Online.
Who is Business Central for, and who is it not?
You have roughly 10 to 200 people, you have outgrown QuickBooks or an aging system like Great Plains or Inflow, and inventory, traceability, or a reliable close matter to your business. Distributors, light manufacturers, and product companies are the classic fit. On the other side: if QuickBooks still fits how you operate, keep it, and if you need enterprise-scale multi-entity master data management, Business Central has a ceiling and the answer may be a bigger platform. Weighing platforms? See our Business Central versus NetSuite comparison.
What does an implementation cost, and when do we find out?
Early, on purpose. After discovery we put a ballpark scope and budget in front of you, with no signature expected, so both sides know the shape of the project early. After design, pricing becomes a fixed scope. We present two structures side by side, a straight hourly project and the same scope amortized monthly with support included, so you can show leadership the difference and defend the choice.
What are these add-ons (ISVs) you keep mentioning?
Business Central covers finance, inventory, and operations out of the box. Industry-specific needs, like catch weight for food distribution, FDA-compliant electronic signatures, or distributor EDI, are covered by vetted add-on products built for Business Central. We name them during design, quote their licensing before you sign anything, and remain your single point of contact. You never call Microsoft or the add-on vendor.
Do we have to migrate all our history?
Usually no, and it is one of the most expensive line items you can buy. Most clients go live with opening balances and open transactions, and keep a snapshot of the old database for lookups. If a regulator or your business genuinely requires full history, we scope it eyes-open.
We run Google Workspace. Is that a problem for Dynamics?
No. Business Central and Dynamics 365 do not care where your email lives, and switching to Microsoft 365 is never a requirement of the project. If you ever want that migration, it is a separate conversation.
What happens after go-live?
Thirty days of hypercare are built into every implementation, then you move to the support option you chose. Expect a response within a couple of hours, usually a live screen share, and sessions that double as training. Heavy investment in training and cutover means post-go-live questions skew toward how-do-I rather than break-fix.
Our current partner controls everything. Can you take over an existing system?
Yes. An environment takeover starts with getting administrative access back into your own tenant, then stabilizing what is there and fixing incrementally. A rescue almost never means re-implementation, and you should see improvements in the first weeks, without waiting for a big-bang cutover.
Will Microsoft's updates break things mid-workday?
Business Central and Dynamics 365 ship two release waves a year, announced months in advance. We review each wave against your configuration, test in a sandbox, and train your team on what changes before it reaches production. No surprise updates during the Tuesday rush.
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