Now that Professional Advantage is offering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central within its solutions library, we felt it important to offer an insight into Business Central with five things you need to know.
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New but proven
In July 2018 Microsoft released Australia's newest ERP cloud offering, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. And while it is now a true cloud offering, it has been based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, a comprehensive ERP system widely accepted and used throughout Europe and America with over 160,000 users. This means you can get the best of both worlds: the latest technology but with the functional maturity of a well-established system. Business Central also comes with the new features and benefits for the customer
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Well-featured
The diagram below shows the major modules of the system.
Project management: Business Central allows for the completion of common tasks such as configuring a job, scheduling a resource, and monitoring progress.
Operations management: Operations are optimised with the ability to manage forecasting, run your warehouse in an efficient manner, and reach optimal output levels.
Reporting & analytics: Using powerful internal and external tools, Business Central allows users access to all aspects of their business processes.
Supply chain management: This module offers precise tracking of order dates by automatically connecting supply with demand, offers visibility of requirements, and gives the ability for changes to be applied accordingly.
Sales & service management: Three modules are incorporated here, to include a built in CRM; sales and receivables; and a service module. Business Central also offers built in integration with Dynamics 365 for Sales. This all means that even the most complicated demands can be addressed.
Financial management: The financial module is seamlessly integrated with all other modules within Business Central, ensuring a financial overview of all operations recorded across your organisation.
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How it stacks up against its big brother Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain
Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain was launched in 2017 and offers functionality, scalability of performance (and a price tag) more suited to larger enterprises. The solution that is most suitable for your organisation will depend upon your business requirement. We will be releasing a later blog highlighting these key differences.
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The benefits of the cloud
What does this move to the cloud mean?
By bringing this previously on-premise system to the cloud, several new benefits are introduced to users including:
- No more will users have to deal with infrastructure, and infrastructural problems.
- There is no installation process for using Business Central in the cloud. Instead it is just a case of running Business Central through a web browser.
- Back-ups have become so much easier. Previously performing back-ups had to be done manually, but now back-ups are performed by Microsoft as part of the offering.
- Business Central as a product has always been popular because of its flexibility, in that one could customise the product to their needs and business processes. This feature is still an integral part of Business Central in the cloud.
- A further option now available is access to the solutions of other providers through Microsoft AppSource.
Whilst the big news is that Business Central is now a cloud system, for those who have poor internet connections and on-premise version of Business Central is expected for 2018.
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Mind the gaps
With a new product release, it's important not to get caught by hype or be misled by over-zealous salespeople. Not all features and functions of Dynamics NAV have been included nor are all the features one would like to see in a cloud ERP included in the first release. Microsoft's outline of its October release provides a good idea of what to watch out for. As always roadmaps must be treated as statements of intent and not guarantees. But for most organisations currently considering a system change, it is highly likely what is listed will be delivered prior to any go-live date that may be envisaged.
Highlights of October Release
High productivity user experience: The user experience within Dynamics NAV can currently satisfy the most complicated demands of its users, whereas the current version of Business Central does not yet meet all of these requirements. Fortunately, Microsoft has stated that the majority of features available in NAV will work the same in Business Central come October.
Tenant administration: Within the current version of Business Central, there are restrictions to how much access a partner has to the life tenancy of a client. With the October release, this limitation will be addressed and partners will be able to manage health, troubleshooting, notifications, and sandboxes.
Professional Advantage and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Business Central is a popular and affordable ERP system designed and aimed at small and medium organisations. Many organisations still use a collection of legacy systems that are not integrated with each other, reducing the level of transparency throughout the business, and forcing manual duplication between systems. Business Central eliminates these issues providing a common platform for every aspect of the business.
Professional Advantage is a highly experienced provider and implementer of leading ERP systems and can guide you through the process of implementing Business Central within your organisation. Our team is experienced in the best methodology to ensure a successful implementation, working to guide the customer to achieve the desired result in the most efficient way. Professional Advantage continues to work with its Business Central clients with comprehensive post go-live support.
For more information on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, visit our product page, or contact us to speak to an expert on 1800 126 499.
