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  • SOLUTION 04. MODERNISE ERP. SMB

NAV doesn't need replacing. It needs continuing.

Business Central is NAV’s direct successor. The same codebase lineage, cloud-native and Copilot-ready. Braintree has already migrated the harder one.
Book the migration assessment
Run the NAV migration readiness check
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  • The point the rip-and-replace pitch leaves out.

Business Central is the next version of NAV.

Microsoft built Dynamics 365 Business Central on the Dynamics NAV codebase. The same data model lineage. 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.
Same codebase family. Documented upgrade path.
moder erp 2 | Braintree
  • Built on Microsoft

The Microsoft stack behind Business Central. Five products, one platform.

Dynamics 365 Business Central

The direct successor to NAV. Finance, operations, sales, service and projects on one platform.

Copilot in Business Central

Bank reconciliation, document drafting and data analysis. AI inside the ERP.

Microsoft Fabric + Power BI

Near real-time reporting on Business Central data. The analytics layer NAV never had.

Power Platform

Low-code apps and workflow that extend Business Central without touching core code.

Microsoft 365 + Teams

Business Central documents, approvals and records inside Teams, where work already happens.

  • The NAV support clock

Where NAV sits in its lifecycle. And why the calm move is the early one.

NAV 2018 was the last full Dynamics NAV release. Here is the support runway, plainly, and the one date that decides your timeline.
2017

NAV 2018 ships

The final release

NAV 2018 is the last full Dynamics NAV version. It is the platform most South African NAV sites still run today.

Jan 2023

Mainstream support ends

Extended support begins

NAV 2018 moves to extended support. No new features. No Copilot. No Microsoft Fabric. The monthly update cadence stops.

Today

Security updates only

You are here

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.

Jan 2028

Extended support ends

The deadline

After this date NAV 2018 receives no security updates at all. Running it past here becomes a POPIA and audit exposure.

After 2028

Unsupported

No path forward

No patches, no fixes, no Microsoft path. A migration run under deadline pressure costs more and keeps less.

The runway

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.
  • How we migrate

How we migrate. Assess, Map, Migrate, Extend.

Four stages. The assessment fixes the scope and the price before anything moves.

Assess

Upgrade / reimplement gate 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.

Map

Every NAV extension, report and workflow is mapped to its Business Central equivalent. C/AL code is reviewed for the AL rebuild. Nothing is assumed.

Migrate

Design, build, test, user acceptance. A weekend cut-over with a documented rollback plan. You trade on Business Central on Monday.

Extend

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 rebuild.
  • The real question

Upgrade or reimplement. The fork the assessment decides.

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.

Upgrade. Carry your NAV forward.

  • Chart of accounts, data and posting logic carried forward into Business Central.
  • C/AL customisations rebuilt as supported AL extensions, isolated from platform upgrades.
  • Historical data and reporting continuity preserved. The shortest credible path to go-live.
  • Timeline: 4 to 6 months. Single weekend cut-over.
Best when NAV has drifted far from how the business now operates.

Reimplement. A fresh Business Central build.

  • Processes redesigned on standard Business Central from day one.
  • Data mapped in selectively. The NAV system is the source, not the structure.
  • The right call when customisations are undocumented, or you are merging entities anyway.
  • Timeline: 6 to 9 months. Phased cut-over common.
Book the migration assessment
  • One Microsoft partner. The commercial case.

One Microsoft Partner. One Intelligent Agreement. One Unified, Secure Solution.

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.
Separate hardware, separate licensing, separate support.

Before. NAV on-premise.

  • On-premise server hardware, plus its refresh cycle
  • NAV BREP licensing renewals, billed on their own clock
  • Separate backup, disaster recovery and patch windows
  • A NAV partner who may not still be doing Business Central cut-overs
  • An upgrade project every few years, scoped and priced from scratch
One Braintree agreement. One SLA. One roadmap.

After. One Intelligent Agreement.

  • One Microsoft Customer Agreement. Per-user, forecastable
  • One Braintree team across the migration and the run-state
  • Continuous monthly update cadence. No upgrade projects
  • Data on Microsoft Azure, POPIA-aligned by default
  • One accountable partner, still here three years in

200%+

return over three years on Business Central Forrester Total Economic Impact study, March 2026.
Composite organisations across mid-market manufacturing,
distribution and services.

38 YEARS

of legacy Microsoft ERP, migrated by Braintree Controlgear Instramac moved off Great Plains. Braintree did the harder migration. NAV to Business Central is the cleaner version of the same playbook.

6 MONTHS

to payback on Business Central Forrester TEI composite. The investment was recouped inside the first six months.

  • Why it matters

Staying on NAV, and moving to Business Central.

Dimension
Staying on NAV
Moving to Business Central with Braintree
Support status
Extended support only. Ends January 2028. No new features.
Fully supported. Continuous monthly update cadence.
WedgeCustomisations
Tightly coupled to core code. Upgrades break things.
AL extension model. Customisations isolated from platform upgrades.
Cloud, mobile and access
On-premise. VPN, RDP and workarounds for remote access.
Azure-hosted. Browser, iOS and Android, built in.
AI inside the ERP
Not available.
Copilot for reconciliation, drafting and data analysis.
Reporting and analytics
Exports to Excel. Batch reports.
Power BI and Microsoft Fabric. Near real-time dashboards.
Cost and upgrades
CapEx hardware, fixed licences, an upgrade project every few years.
Per-user subscription, forecastable. No upgrade projects.
Every row moves the same direction. Staying on NAV is a holding cost, not yet a crisis. The point of the assessment is to choose the move before the calendar makes it for you.
  • Talk to a migration specialist

Three specialists. One direct line. Plus the 8-minute readiness check.

The bench you’ll work with

Three Business Central specialists. Matched to your assessment.

Screenshot 2026 06 01 at 13.52.48 | Braintree

01 Business Central Practice Lead

Microsoft Certified. Dynamics 365 Business Central.

02 Migration Architect, AL and Extensions

Microsoft Certified. Business Central Developer.

03 Commercial Lead, One Intelligent Agreement

Microsoft Customer Agreement. CSP.

We 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.
Match me to a specialist →
  • Free, 8 minutes

How ready is your NAV environment to move to Business Central?

8 questions. We score your NAV environment 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.
Run the NAV migration readiness check
  • Book the assessment.

From assessment to live on Business Central, in three steps.

01

Share your NAV environment

Tell us what you run today. NAV version, customisations, ISV add-ons, integrations, data quality. Five to ten minutes on your side.

02

5-day scoped response (SLA)

Braintree returns a fixed-scope migration plan, the upgrade or reimplement recommendation and a real number. Inside five business days.

03

30-minute findings call

Review the scope with the migration architect. Confirm the fork. Lock the go-live window. Walk the TCO model. No sales pitch.
Book the migration assessment
  • Common questions, honestly answered.

What NAV owners ask before they book.

Eight questions we answer in every migration assessment. Pre-empted here so you can scan first.
What happens to our NAV customisations?
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.
Both work, and we scope the right one for your business. Single-entity NAV usually goes as a single weekend cut-over. Multi-entity or multi-country groups are almost always phased by legal entity or region. The Assess phase is where we lock that decision, not later.
Some NAV partners are still here and doing good work. Talk to them too. But many are not, and a lot have never run a full Business Central cut-over at scale. Braintree is one of three Microsoft Managed Partners in South Africa. We have migrated Great Plains, the harder migration, to Business Central, and we are still here to own the outcome three years in. That is the test.
  • From the Braintree practice.

Insights on the move from NAV to Business Central.

Planning

The NAV inventory every CFO should have before asking for a migration quote.

Customisations, integrations, ISV add-ons, report debt. The list the assessment is actually scored on, and the one you can build before you call anyone.
  • Article in production

Case study

Controlgear Instramac: 38 years of legacy Microsoft ERP, live on Business Central in six months.

How a specialist engineering business cut over in a single weekend, and what it means for a NAV environment where the codebase lineage is the same.
  • Article in production

Methodology

Keep, kill or rebuild: the framework we run on every NAV customisation.

The four-question test that decides whether a NAV customisation moves to Business Central as an AL extension, gets replaced by standard Business Central, or gets retired.
  • Article in production
  • Where this connects.

Where NAV to Business Central sits in the stack.

One Braintree agreement. One team. Full Microsoft coverage.

ERP. New Implementation

Not coming from NAV? The new-implementation route to Business Central, designed for a business going onto Dynamics 365 for the first time.

Explore →

Modernise ERP. Enterprise

On Dynamics AX, GP, or a larger multi-entity NAV estate? The enterprise modernisation route, scoped for scale and phased cut-over.

Explore →

Data & Analytics

Power BI and Microsoft Fabric on Business Central data. The reporting layer NAV never had, and the natural next step once you are live.

Explore →
  • NAV doesn't need replacing. It needs continuing.

Give your CFO a fixed-scope number, not a 2028 scramble.

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.
Book the migration assessment
Run the NAV migration readiness check