One unified data model
Single SQL Server database, single chart of accounts, single item master. Finance, sales, purchasing, inventory and production all post into the same ledger — no integration debt.
What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
An integrated cloud ERP built for growing businesses.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Microsoft Dynamics NAV / Navision) is Microsoft's flagship ERP for small and mid-sized businesses. One application unifies financials, sales, service, projects, supply chain, manufacturing and warehousing — delivered as SaaS on Microsoft Azure or installed on-premises.
Cloud-first SaaS on Azure
Microsoft-managed Azure tenants with two major release waves a year, monthly platform updates and rolling country localisations across 100+ jurisdictions.
Multi-entity, multi-currency
Run up to 300 companies in a single tenant. Intercompany posting, consolidations, transfer pricing and multi-currency revaluation built into the core platform.
Native Microsoft 365 fit
Excel two-way edit-and-publish, Outlook contact-and-quote add-in, Teams cards for approvals, OneDrive for attachments, SharePoint for document libraries.
Power Platform native
Out-of-the-box Power BI app, ready-made Power Automate connectors, Power Apps page customisation and a no-code AppSource extension catalogue.
Enterprise-grade security
Azure AD / Entra ID identity, role-based access at table and field level, GDPR data-subject tooling, AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS 1.2+ in transit.
Business Central modules
What's inside the box — twelve functional areas.
Business Central ships with twelve functional areas out of the box. Each area is fully integrated — a posted sales invoice updates the customer ledger, the item ledger, the G/L, dimensions, and (where set) job and fixed-asset ledgers in a single transaction.
Financial Management
G/L, sub-ledgers, dimensions, deferrals, fixed assets, intercompany, cash management, bank reconciliation, budgets, consolidations.
Sales & Receivables
Quotes, orders, blanket orders, drop-shipments, returns, customer credit limits, payment reminders, finance charges, statements.
Purchasing & Payables
RFQs, blanket/standard purchase orders, vendor item catalog, requisition worksheet, three-way match, vendor payments, settlement discounts.
Inventory
Item categories, item attributes, item variants, units of measure, lot & serial tracking, item charges, costing methods (FIFO/LIFO/Avg/Specific/Standard).
Warehouse Management
Bin-level WMS, directed put-away & pick, cross-docking, cycle counting, ADCS (handheld scanning), zones, warehouse classes.
Manufacturing
BOMs, routings, work centres, machine centres, production orders (planned/firm/released), capacity planning, sub-contracting, MRP.
Projects (Jobs)
Project budgets, time sheets, WIP recognition (cost-cost / cost-value / sales-value), invoicing schedules, resource planning.
Service Management
Service items, service contracts, fault & resolution codes, dispatch board, response & resolution time tracking.
CRM-light (Relationship Mgmt)
Contacts, opportunities, sales cycles, interaction log, segments, marketing campaigns — plus Dynamics 365 Sales connector for full CRM.
Human Resources (light)
Employee master, absence registration, qualifications, confidential employee information. Full HR via payroll partners on AppSource.
VAT / GST / Localisation
UAE VAT, KSA VAT & ZATCA e-invoicing, India GST, US sales tax, EU VAT MOSS, MTD. 100+ country localisations from Microsoft and partners.
Reporting & Analytics
Account schedules (financial reports), analysis views, dimension correction, Power BI embed, Excel layouts, Word document layouts, RDL reports.
Deployment options
Three deployment shapes — Online, on-premises, hybrid.
Microsoft positions Business Central as cloud-first, but the platform supports three deployment topologies. The technical capabilities are largely identical; the operational and commercial models differ.
BC Online (SaaS)
The default. Microsoft-hosted Azure tenants. No infrastructure to maintain. Monthly platform updates, two major release waves a year (April & October). Per-user subscription via the Microsoft New Commerce Experience (NCE).
Best for: most SMEs. Lowest TCO, fastest path to value.
BC On-premises
Installed on your Windows Server / SQL Server (or Azure VM). Perpetual licence + Software Assurance. You control update cadence, custom code freedom, full database access. Higher TCO and operational responsibility.
Best for: data-residency constraints, heavy customisation, ISV scenarios.
Hybrid (BC On-prem + Cloud)
On-prem database paired with cloud services — Power BI, Office add-ins, Intelligent Cloud Insights data replication. Useful as a stepping-stone toward full BC Online migration.
Best for: phased cloud migration, NAV legacy upgrade paths.
Business Central licensing
Three user types — Essentials, Premium, Team Member.
Business Central is licensed per named user. Three SKUs cover the spectrum from light read/approve users through full ERP power users. Mix and match within a single tenant.
Essentials
The full ERP user. Financial management, supply chain, sales/purchase, projects, warehouse, HR-light, dimensions, multi-company. Most users at most SMEs sit here.
Premium
Adds manufacturing & service management. Required if any user in the tenant runs production orders, capacity planning or service-contract workflows. Tenant-wide upgrade — cannot mix Premium & Essentials.
Team Member
The light-touch user. Read all data, update self-service records (own time sheets, expenses, contacts), approve workflows. Cannot post journals or run reports beyond consumer scope.
Annual or three-year commit under the Microsoft New Commerce Experience (NCE). Device licences available for shared shop-floor / warehouse terminals. Buying through a partner gives you additional managed-services value beyond the bare licence.
Platform · AL · extensibility
Extend Business Central with AL extensions — never modify the base app.
Modern BC is fully extension-based. Every customisation is delivered as an isolated AL extension package — installed per tenant, versioned, and unaffected by Microsoft's monthly platform updates. C/AL is fully retired in BC Online.
AL language & VS Code
AL is Microsoft's object-oriented language for BC — objects: Table, Page, Report, Codeunit, Query, XMLport, ControlAddIn. Authored in Visual Studio Code with the AL Language extension. Source control via Git. CI/CD via Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
Per-tenant extensions (PTEs)
Tenant-specific code installs into the per-tenant slot. AppSource extensions install side-by-side. No code touches Microsoft's base app, so platform updates roll through without regression in customer code (when AL is properly written against published events).
Event-driven architecture
Microsoft publishes integration events and business events on every base-app object. Subscribers in custom extensions react without modifying base code — clean upgrade path, predictable behaviour across release waves.
AppSource publishing
Validated extensions go through Microsoft's AppSource technical-validation pipeline (automated lint + manual review) and are then discoverable inside every BC tenant globally — the same channel through which Novasoft publishes NOVAQC, NOVAHUB, NOVATRADE and NOVAPOWER.
Integration surfaces
How Business Central talks to other systems.
Business Central exposes a rich set of integration surfaces — standard REST APIs, OData, custom AL APIs, Power Automate connectors and direct SQL views for on-prem. No matter the counter-party, there is a clean integration path.
Standard REST API v2.0
Microsoft's published REST API exposes 60+ standard entities — customers, items, sales orders, invoices, accounts, journals — under api/v2.0. OAuth 2.0 via Entra ID.
Custom AL APIs
Expose any BC page as a custom API in AL — REST endpoints scoped to publisher / namespace / version. Webhooks via the Subscription endpoint. Great fit for headless e-commerce, marketplace and 3PL integrations.
Power Automate & Power Apps
Native Business Central connector for Power Automate (300+ pre-built actions) and Power Apps. No-code flows: approvals, document automation, alerts, scheduled exports.
Shopify connector (built-in)
Microsoft ships a native Shopify connector — bi-directional sync of items, prices, inventory, customers, orders, fulfilments. Multi-store, multi-currency. Configuration guide.
Bank & payment integrations
Bank-statement import (BAI2, MT940, CAMT), positive-pay export, electronic payments (SEPA, ACH, Wire), payment-gateway connectors (Stripe, PayTabs, HyperPay) for GCC.
EDI · WMS · 3PL
EDI X.12 / EDIFACT through partner connectors. Standard SCM integrations with Manhattan, Blue Yonder and Oracle Cloud WMS. 3PL integrations via custom AL APIs.
Business Central at Novasoft · Videos
Watch Business Central in action.
Eleven short demos covering BC mobile, copy-journal, licensing, Outlook add-in, CRM, NovaCare, company hub, release-wave features, cash-flow analysis and catalog items. Click any thumbnail to play.
Featured · Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner, Novasoft
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner · Novasoft
Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations · Overview
Business Central at Novasoft · Playlist
Business Central Mobile
Copy Journal in Business Central
Business Central Licensing
Microsoft Dynamics Business Central Outlook Add-in
Business Central CRM · UAE
Business Central Videos · Feature deep-dives
NovaCare · Comprehensive BC Support
Company Hub in Business Central
Business Central Release Wave 2020
Analysing Cash Flow in Business Central
Catalog Items in Business Central
Subscribe to Novasoft's YouTube channel for new BC walk-throughs every release wave.
Feature deep-dives
Six Business Central capabilities worth a closer look.
Practical detail on the BC features users touch every day — the phone client, Outlook add-in, Company Hub, cash-flow analytics, catalog items and journal corrections. Each maps to a demo video above.
Business Central phone client
Business Central phone client targets small and medium-sized business users who want to access data from a phone. Portability and flexibility allow end-users to perform tasks when they are away from their desk.
Outlook add-in
With the Business Central Outlook add-in, you can perform sales operations, view financial data related to customers and vendors, and send sales & purchase documents — without leaving Outlook.
Company Hub
Business Central Company Hub gives you a list of the companies you work in. You can easily add new companies by just providing a URL and a name. You also have a list of assigned user tasks per company, so you can keep track of work required for each.
Cash flow statement & forecast
The cash-flow statement (CFS) summarises inflow and outflow of cash and cash equivalents — measuring how well the business generates cash to pay debt and fund operations. Business Central supports both Direct and Indirect CFS, plus cash-flow forecasting.
Catalog Items
Offer items to customers for their convenience without managing them in inventory until they start selling. Maintain featured or pre-launch items in the BC Item Catalog list and convert them to regular items before purchasing.
Journal corrections
When working with large journals, it is important to have an easy way to correct mistakes — copy-journal in BC lets you replicate a journal batch line-for-line and reverse, then re-post, with full audit trail.
Business Central apps & extensions
Industry apps and connectors on Microsoft AppSource.
Business Central's extension model means industry-specific functionality ships as installable AL apps from Microsoft AppSource — installed per tenant, versioned, and unaffected by base-app updates. A representative set:
LS Central retail addon
Unified BC + POS + e-commerce for hospitality, grocery and fashion. Same code base, same data model — anchor in LS Central addon section below.
Shopify ↔ Business Central
Bi-directional sync — items, prices, inventory, customers, orders. Multi-store, multi-currency. Read more.
NOVAQC quality
Advanced quality control for BC Manufacturing — inspection plans, COA, non-conformance, deviation workflows.
NOVAHUB partner portal
Customer / vendor self-service portal on BC — self-registration, AR aging, order placement, document upload, messaging.
NOVATRADE SEZ
Free-zone / SEZ trading compliance on BC — bonded inventory, transfer pricing, statutory reporting for UAE and KSA jurisdictions.
NOVAPOWER utility billing
Utility metering, tariffs and billing on BC for power, water and district-cooling providers across the GCC.
NAV → BC migration · the technical path
From Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Business Central Online.
Business Central is the direct successor to Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision). Microsoft ships the Cloud Migration Tool for NAV 2015+ source systems, plus the Intelligent Cloud Insights data-replication pipeline. The technical migration is well-defined.
- Code modernisation
- C/AL source code converted to AL extensions. Base-app modifications refactored as event subscribers. The base app stays Microsoft-owned and forward-upgradeable.
- Cloud Migration Tool
- Microsoft's native tool replicates NAV / GP / SL master data and history into BC Online — supports incremental replication and cut-over migration windows.
- Data conversion
- Schema mapping, dimension restructuring, item-attribute migration, posting-group consolidation. Sequence reset for ledger entries on cut-over.
- Validation
- UAT scripts driven from the AL test framework, trial balance reconciliation against the legacy ledger, performance benchmarking against BC Online tenant baselines.
Reference: Migrate to Cloud overview · Upgrade & migrate
Security & compliance
Enterprise-grade security on the Microsoft cloud.
Business Central inherits the same security and compliance posture as the rest of Microsoft's commercial cloud. Microsoft holds the platform certifications; partner-built extensions and customer configuration cover the application layer.
Identity · Entra ID
Single sign-on through Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). Multi-factor authentication, conditional access, named admin roles. Per-tenant identity isolation — no shared accounts across customers.
Encryption
AES-256 encryption at rest (Azure Storage Service Encryption + Transparent Data Encryption on the SQL database). TLS 1.2+ in transit. Customer-managed keys available where regulatory regimes require them.
Role-based permissions
Granular permissions at object, table and field level. Composable permission sets, indirect permissions for posting routines, effective-permissions troubleshooting view, security filters per dimension or per company.
Data residency
Choose the Microsoft datacentre geography that hosts the tenant — UAE Central, Saudi Arabia Central, US, EU, India, etc. Data stays in-region in line with sovereignty rules and ZATCA / GDPR / SAMA expectations.
Audit & change log
Built-in Change Log tracks who-changed-what on any tagged field. Database-level audit trails for every posting, every dimension change and every approval action.
Compliance posture
Microsoft-side certifications cover ISO 27001 / 27017 / 27018, SOC 1 & 2, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP Moderate, and country-specific frameworks (UAE IAR, KSA NCA ECC, India MeitY).
Business Central AI · Copilot & Agents
AI is built into Business Central — Copilot, Sales Order Agent, marketing & analytics.
Microsoft ships several Copilot features inside the BC base app (marketing-text suggestion, bank reconciliation assistance, sales-line summarisation, the Sales Order Agent). Custom Copilots extend AI to additional workflows through the AL platform's PromptDialog and Azure OpenAI bindings.
BC AI partner
Microsoft Copilot inside Business Central — natural-language journal entries, sales-order summaries, marketing text suggestions.
BC AI partnerPurchase Co-Pilot for BC
AI-powered procurement — vendor scoring, requisition routing, supplier-quote comparison. Novasoft IP on AppSource.
Purchase Co-PilotRetail Co-Pilot for LS Central
AI analytics over LS Central — basket analysis, store performance Q&A, replenishment forecasting.
Retail Co-PilotMicrosoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot partner for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and Outlook — bundled with BC tenants.
M365 CopilotAI Solutions hub
Novasoft's full AI services catalogue — Copilots, Agents, custom LLM apps, Azure AI Foundry deployments.
AI SolutionsAI in BC · Long-read
"The integration of AI in Dynamics 365 Business Central — revolutionizing business operations". Novasoft blog feature.
Read the article
LS Central retail addon for Business Central
LS Central — unified retail on Business Central.
LS Retail's LS Central is built directly on Business Central — same code base, same data model. Retailers get POS, e-commerce, replenishment, loyalty and hospitality on top of BC financials, in a single install.
Unified POS
Hardware-station POS, mobile POS and Self-Checkout (SCO) — all running off the same item, price and inventory data as BC.
LS Central Hospitality
Restaurant POS, KDS, recipe management, table management — for QSR, casual dining and cloud kitchens.
LS Central SaaS
Cloud-delivered LS Central on BC Online — monthly subscription, Microsoft-hosted, automatic updates.
LS Central SaaSLS Central deep-dive LS Retail practice Legacy LS Central page
Business Central in your industry
Where Business Central runs in production.
Business Central's combination of a single data model, AL extensibility and AppSource catalogue makes it a natural fit for vertical workloads. A few of the industry-specific BC stacks:
Retail
BC + LS Central for unified retail across hypermarkets, supermarkets, fashion and convenience.
RetailCPG & Distribution
BC + WMS + EDI + NOVAHUB for wholesale & distribution — multi-warehouse, multi-currency.
CPG & DistributionFacility Management
BC + IWMS / CAFM / FMS — twelve modules for housekeeping, hospitality, security, guarding, maintenance.
Facility ManagementManufacturing
BC Manufacturing for discrete and process production — with NOVAQC advanced quality.
Manufacturing
Sources & references
Read more on official Microsoft and BC sources.
Business Central · FAQ
Questions our customers ask most.
How can Novasoft help with Business Central implementation?
Novasoft offers comprehensive support for Business Central implementation, including needs assessment, customisation, data migration and training to ensure a smooth transition and optimal use of the system.
What industries do Novasoft's Business Central solutions cater to?
Novasoft's Business Central solutions are versatile and can be tailored to various industries including manufacturing, retail, distribution and services — addressing specific needs and challenges.
What are the benefits of using Business Central for my business?
Business Central enhances operational efficiency, provides real-time insights, integrates various business functions, and supports scalability to adapt to your growing business needs.
What is the process for migrating to Business Central with Novasoft?
Novasoft manages the migration process with a structured approach, including data assessment, migration planning, execution and validation to ensure a seamless transition from your existing system.
How does Novasoft ensure the security of data in Business Central?
Business Central includes robust security features, and Novasoft implements additional measures such as secure data access controls, encryption and regular security updates to protect your data.
What kind of training does Novasoft provide for Business Central users?
Novasoft offers comprehensive training programs, including on-site sessions, virtual workshops and user guides to ensure your team is proficient in using Business Central effectively.
How can I contact Novasoft for Business Central inquiries?
You can reach Novasoft through the contact form below, by email, or by phone. Office details are listed in the footer for the UAE, KSA, USA and India.