Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the next version of NAV, not a rebuild. Braintree carries your system forward and modernises only what the assessment says to.
One lineage, one codebase
Microsoft built Dynamics 365 Business Central on the Dynamics NAV codebase. Navision to Dynamics NAV to Business Central, one lineage. The same data model, the same posting logic, the financial core your team already knows. The C/AL customisations you wrote into NAV have a documented path to AL extensions in Business Central. This is a continuation, not a rebuild from zero. A vendor moving you onto a different ERP platform cannot say that.
The direct successor to NAV. Finance, operations, sales, service and projects on one platform.
Bank reconciliation, document drafting and data analysis. AI inside the ERP.
Near real-time reporting on Business Central data. The analytics layer NAV never had.
Low-code apps and workflow that extend Business Central without touching core code.
Business Central documents, approvals and records inside Teams, where work already happens.
NAV 2018 was the last full Dynamics NAV release. Here is the support runway, plainly, and the one date that decides your timeline.
NAV 2018 is the last full Dynamics NAV version. It is the platform most South African NAV sites still run today. Everything after this is Business Central. No NAV 2019, no NAV 2020.
NAV 2018 moves to extended support. No new features. No Copilot. No Microsoft Fabric. The monthly update cadence stops.
NAV still runs, but the platform has stopped moving. Each year on it widens the gap to Business Central, and the work to close it. A holding cost, not yet a crisis.
After this date NAV 2018 receives no security updates at all. Running it past here becomes a POPIA and audit exposure. A migration run under deadline pressure costs more and keeps less.
You have until January 2028. You do not need that long. A clean NAV to Business Central migration runs four to six months. Start now and you choose the go-live window, scope the work without pressure, and cut over on a quiet weekend. Start in 2027 and the calendar makes those choices for you.
Book a migration assessmentFour stages. The assessment fixes the scope and the price before anything moves.
We audit your NAV environment: version, customisations, ISV add-ons, integration surface, data quality. You leave with a fixed-scope migration plan and a real number.
Fixed scope, real numberEvery NAV extension, report and workflow is mapped to its Business Central equivalent. C/AL code is reviewed for the AL rebuild. Nothing is assumed.
Design, build, test, user acceptance. A weekend cut-over with a documented rollback plan. You trade on Business Central on Monday.
Copilot, Microsoft Fabric and Power Platform go in after go-live. This is where the return compounds.
Braintree doesn't start your ERP from zero. We carry NAV forward, and rebuild only what the assessment says to.
Most buyers assume NAV to Business Central means starting over. Most of the time it does not. Both paths land on the same Business Central. The assessment decides which one fits your environment, not a first sales call.
Best for most NAV sites, where the core processes still fit how the business runs.
Best when NAV has drifted far from how the business now operates.
NAV on-premise spreads your cost and your accountability across hardware, licensing, backup and a support contract. Each renews on its own clock. Business Central with Braintree replaces all of it with one Microsoft agreement and one accountable partner, across the migration and the years after it.
Forrester's Total Economic Impact study, March 2026, modelled composite organisations across mid-market manufacturing, distribution and services. The composite return was more than 200% over three years, and the investment was recouped inside the first six months.
Controlgear Instramac ran 38 years on the old system before moving off Great Plains. Braintree did that migration over a single weekend. NAV to Business Central is the cleaner version of the same playbook: the codebase lineage is closer, so the path is shorter.Controlgear Instramac, Great Plains to Business Central with Braintree
Business Central with BraintreeWe match you to the right specialist when you book the migration assessment. Names land in your calendar invite, not on a page you scrolled past.
8 questions, scored against the readiness pattern from 220+ SA clients. You get a tier, Migration-ready, Assessment-ready, Nearly ready or Early, plus the actions that close the gap before you scope.
NAV version, customisations, ISV add-ons, integrations, data quality. Five to ten minutes on your side.
Braintree returns a fixed-scope migration plan, the upgrade or reimplement recommendation and a real number. Inside five business days.
Review the scope with the migration architect. Confirm the fork. Lock the go-live window. Walk the TCO model. No sales pitch.
Every customisation goes through an inventory in the Map phase. We keep the ones that still pay for themselves, retire the ones that do not, and rebuild the rest as supported AL extensions in Business Central. You get a line-by-line decision log. No code moves on guesswork.
We audit every ISV in the Assess phase and check each vendor's Business Central roadmap. Most have a direct Business Central equivalent. A few have been replaced by native Business Central functionality. A small number need a substitute. You get a vendor-by-vendor recommendation before you sign anything off.
Most mid-market NAV environments land between four and six months end to end. Heavily customised or multi-entity environments can run longer. Clean, near-standard NAV runs shorter. The cut-over itself is a single weekend. Saturday off NAV, trading in Business Central by Monday.
Staying on NAV carries hardware, BREP licensing, backup and upgrade-project debt. Business Central is a predictable per-user monthly subscription that replaces all of it. We build the full three-year TCO comparison before you commit. Forrester's 2026 Total Economic Impact study put the composite return at more than 200% over three years, with a six-month payback.
The target is Business Central online. That is the direction Microsoft is investing in, and where Copilot, Microsoft Fabric and the monthly feature releases live. Business Central on-premises exists if the business case genuinely requires it. We will be straight with you about the trade-offs before you choose that path.
NAV reports are rebuilt in Power BI. Cleaner, self-service, plugged into the same Business Central data. The ones still needed as pixel-perfect statements stay in Business Central as Word or RDL layouts. Finance gets a better reporting experience out the other side, not a worse one.
The new-implementation route to Business Central, designed for a business going onto Dynamics 365 for the first time.
Visit ERP New Implementation
Dynamics 365 for sales and service, on the same Microsoft estate as Business Central. One agreement, one team.
Visit CRM
Power BI and Microsoft Fabric on Business Central data. The natural next step once you are live.
Visit Data & AnalyticsBook the 30-minute migration assessment. We audit your NAV environment, recommend upgrade or reimplement, and hand you a fixed-scope plan and a three-year TCO model. No pitch deck.
