What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

With support for multiple languages, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a robust scalable solution ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers a flexible platform giving you unlimited access to new features and functionality based on your changing business needs.

Dynamic 365 Business Central allows you to unify your business by connecting financials, sales, services, and operations in a single, centralized source. Organizations can improve operational efficiency and productivity with automated tasks and workflows that are all integrated within familiar Office tools for a seamless business ecosystem.

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Each April and October, Microsoft releases upgrades to Dynamics 365 to boost functionality and meet the demands of a growing customer base. Each new release is rolled out gradually across all regions and users receive an email notification with information about when their environment will be updated. The current version, BC 18 (also referred to as Business Central 2021 release wave 1) was released in April 2021.

With a fresh, modern experience, BC18 includes improvements and ongoing changes that Microsoft is pursuing in its efforts to drive digital transformation. It offers a clear, comprehensive overview of all your entire organization with connected data and business analytics for everything from inventory management to supply chain and distribution.

What’s included in Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Dynamics 365 Business Central brings the full power of Microsoft Dynamics NAV to the cloud. The application offers an updated, intuitive user experience as well as a familiar Microsoft Office 365 user interface, personalized feeds, and smart notifications. All designed to enable users to work smarter and be more productive than ever before.

What is a tenant in Business Central?

A tenant uses your Business Central solution to store business data for one or more Business Central solutions. Oftentimes, this business database stores data from a business or group of legal entities together in one location. Each tenant is unique and separate from other tenants. Whenever you buy a Microsoft product and a set of licenses, you can create a tenant for your organization and select its specific default location, such as Europe or North America. In multi-tenancy deployments, several different companies can access a centrally managed Business Central application. And, everyone can easily add new customers and quickly roll out updates with limited downtime for your customers.

Because your Business Central application and customers’ data are stored in separate tenants, it’s easy to deploy the same solution to different legal entities. This allows for centralized management of the application while the customer’s data is isolated in each tenant. So, for example, if your group has multiple companies, you can create separate databases to store each company’s business data and store information about the shared Business Central application in a dedicated application database. This enables easy management and lets you grow your system as your business grows. 

How do I access Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Business Central offers easy access from any web browser. Simply enter your username and access code supplied by your Business Central partner and you can directly access to the Business Central client. It’s that simple! In addition, Dynamics 365 for phones and tablets is ideal for taking it on the road with easy access to customer information including customer profiles and contact information. It helps empower teams by giving them instant access to all the information they need and allows them to efficiently perform business operations — anytime and anywhere. Furthermore, the Business Central administration center includes a portal allowing administrators to easily perform tasks for a Business Central tenant.

Do I need a Microsoft Dynamics Partner?

Businesses are constantly growing and evolving, and it can be challenging to transform your business and ensure you can always address your needs— both today and tomorrow. By working closely with a Microsoft Partner, you can determine the most efficient path forward for your organization and ensure you have the flexibility and possibility needed to respond to future changes. By choosing the right solution and support team, it’s possible to achieve great results in a short time.

How to upgrade to Business Central?

Whether you plan to migrate to the cloud soon, or you need your solution to stay on-premise for now, upgrading from Dynamics NAV or even Dynamics AX to Business Central can be a smooth and cost-efficient process. Pipol’s easy-to-execute upgrade assessment is a smart place to start. It dives deep into your current solution and carefully considers your business strategy to determine your ideal upgrade path. Designed to help you make the right decisions for your solution, it aligns your business with the Microsoft roadmap.

Read more about the benefits of upgrading to Dynamics 365 and Pipol’s upgrade assessment in our blog.

Are you ready to make the move?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is designed to enhance your operations and processes and align with your current working practices. At Pipol, we understand that your business is unique, and we can help you adapt specific Dynamics 365 applications and services for your organization. We aim to take the complexity out of the business transformation process and help you make the right choices about business solutions, develop the processes that best support your goals and roll out smoothly across your entire organization.

With our expert guidance, local resources, implementations based on best practices, and tight project management, we have the functional competencies and global presence needed to support our international customers wherever they’re located.

Need help?

Get in touch today to learn more about how we can guide you through this process.

And, if you want to read more about Microsoft Dynamics 365, check out our blog about this scalable, cost-effective business application platform in the cloud.