Your CFO is three days into the month-end close, manually reconciling reports from three different spreadsheets. Your newest accountant keeps asking, “Why can’t I just click into this number and see the detail?”
You’ve been running Great Plains for years. When Microsoft starts the end-of-support conversation, Business Central seems like the obvious choice. We hear this every week: “We assumed Business Central would feel like Great Plains in the cloud.”
That assumption costs companies months of productivity. Business Central is not Great Plains 2.0; it is a completely different system with different interfaces and workflows. Since you are doing a full implementation either way, we should evaluate all your options, not just the one with the Microsoft logo.
No Matter Which Platform You Choose, You’re Implementing a New System
Migrating from Great Plains to Business Central is not an upgrade. It’s a full ERP implementation. Data migration takes the same time whether you move to Business Central or another platform. Your chart of accounts has to be restructured, which is the biggest structural change you’ll face.
Microsoft markets a “push-button migration” tool, but as one of our senior consultants puts it: “The amount of time and effort required to move from GP to Business Central is going to be similar to moving to Acumatica.” You’ll invest 4 to 6 months, no matter which platform you choose. That timeline is fixed. Your options are not.
What Business Central Does Well
Before we get into the challenges, let’s be fair about what Business Central gets right. The Excel integration is excellent. You can edit data directly in Excel and sync it back to the system. If your team lives in spreadsheets, this feels natural.
The interface will feel familiar if you work in Microsoft 365. The look and feel align with Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint. Updates happen automatically in the cloud without disrupting your operations. The Microsoft ecosystem integration is unmatched, connecting with Power Platform, Teams, and other tools your organization already uses.
These are real advantages for organizations embedded in the Microsoft world. The question is whether they outweigh the daily challenges your team will face.
Everything’s Different: What Your Team Will Face on Day One
Business Central is web-based with a completely different interface from Great Plains. Your team expects familiar menus; instead, they get Role Centers and a different mental map for navigation.
A Concrete Example: Finding Your General Ledger
In Great Plains, finding a transaction is fast because of years of muscle memory. In Business Central, the path is entirely different, moving through journals and registers.
- In Great Plains: You go to the Dynamics GP menu, select Smartlist, then Financial, and Account Transactions. You can search directly by journal entry number and double-click to see the actual entry.
- In Business Central: You navigate to Finance and then General Journals. You must then select General Journal and GL Register. To find a specific transaction, you have to hunt down the journal entry number and search for it from there.
Workflow Comparison: Entering Vendor Invoices
The difference in intuitiveness becomes clear when you look at daily data entry.
- Business Central: To enter an invoice, you go to Purchasing and Purchase Invoices. After selecting New and entering the vendor name, you choose between a GL account, an item, or a fixed asset. The system saves automatically as you work, but it remains unposted.
- Acumatica: You go to the Payables module and select New Bill. Much of the info fills in based on vendor defaults. If the GL account is wrong, you do not need the number; you can search by typing “Rent” directly in the field. Once saved and the hold is removed, it is released.
Business Central’s Biggest Gap: Financial Reporting
This surprises most GP customers: Business Central’s native financial reporting is extremely limited. Its “Account Schedules” are notoriously rigid. To get the drill-down reporting most GP users expect, you’ll often need to purchase Power BI or Jet Reports. That is an additional licensing cost on top of your investment.
Compare that to Acumatica, which includes a native financial report writer from day one. You get drill-down capabilities, customizable layouts, and real-time dashboards without additional software fees.
Beyond the License: What You’re Really Paying For
The initial quote never tells the whole story.
The Licensing Model Stays the Same Your current Great Plains model involves paying roughly $3,000 per year per user. Business Central is still per-seat licensing, running about $1,200 per year per user. You still have different license tiers where some people can enter info and others can only view.
A different approach: Systems like Acumatica include unlimited users. No license tier complexity. Want to add a new user? Set it up. Done.
Integration: A Familiar Pain Point Great Plains users know the frustration of Integration Manager. It looked like a product that interns maintained and behaved like one too. Modern systems use import and export scenarios that let you upload data straight to screens. No middleware is needed.
The Succession Question
Some Great Plains customers are holdouts, planning to let it be the next person’s problem. But that next person has different expectations. They want modern, web-based systems they can access from anywhere. They do not want legacy desktop software or virtual machine workarounds for remote access.
The Technology Risk
As we sit here in 2026, the Great Plains risk is no longer theoretical. Windows 10 is retired. If you’re still on GP, you’re likely paying a premium for security updates or operating with a massive bullseye for cyber threats. Microsoft has set a hard date: December 31, 2029. That is the day mainstream support, tax updates, and bug fixes stop for good. With new GP subscription sales ending this year (April 2026), the ecosystem is being sunsetted in real-time.
Questions to Ask Before You Commit
- User Experience: How many clicks does it take to get from a report down to the original vendor invoice?
- Financial Reporting: Does it include native reporting, or do I need add-ons for basic board reports?
- Licensing: What is the true cost per user, and are there hidden fees for view-only access?
- Integration: Does it handle data imports directly, or is it a middleware headache like the old Integration Manager?
What Comes Next
The Microsoft name feels safe, but your ERP decision should be about what helps your team work most efficiently. The choice you make now shapes the next decade of your business.
Would you like us to run a side-by-side comparison of these specific workflows using your current chart of accounts? Fill out this form to reach out!
