Which Dynamics GP Reports Should You Rebuild in Business Central? - Braintree
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Which Dynamics GP Reports Should You Rebuild in Business Central?

The reporting workstream starts with key decisions. It also includes controls and calculations for the new environment.

Executive overview

  • A GP report inventory records outputs. Migration scope depends on the decision served by each report and the logic behind it.
  • Management Reporter, GP Report Writer, Crystal Reports, and SmartLists sit outside the standard data migration path.
  • Dimension design and historical data choices shape the analysis available after migration.
  • Pre-built Power BI apps reduce development once the organisation has agreed on its measures and reporting definitions.
Which reports would leave the organisation unable to explain a decision or complete a required control if they disappeared?

Report inventories conceal the work involved

A Dynamics GP report inventory provides a reference for discovery. The work required to reproduce an output in Business Central remains hidden until the project team traces its calculation and data source, then establishes its management purpose.

Management Reporter definitions remain in GP after the move to Business Central. The same applies to GP Report Writer outputs, Crystal Reports and SmartList queries. Each requires review before the team selects a Business Central financial report, analysis view, Power BI model or extension.

The scale of the opportunity warrants that review. APQC found that survey participants spent “75 percent of their time gathering data and administering processes”. Reproducing unnecessary reports preserves the workload that the migration should address.

Business logic carried by existing reports

Management Reporter income statements group accounts according to structures maintained by finance. Adjustments applied in an Excel board pack remain outside GP and its preparation instructions. The completed pack then contains reporting knowledge absent from the source report.

Margin illustrates the risk. Finance might include freight and inventory adjustments while an operational report uses selling price and product cost. Rebuilding both versions before agreeing the definition transfers the dispute into Business Central.

Data quality carries the same consequence. Gartner estimates that poor data quality costs organisations at least US$12.9 million a year on average. During migration, inconsistent account coding or dimensions affect the reliability of management reporting and increase reconciliation work.

Decide what the business must retain

The assessment starts with the recipient. The action taken after a variance establishes the report’s role in management. Statutory and audit obligations govern required outputs. A control report earns its place through the evidence it retains.

Each report needs a named owner and a defined purpose, while its calculation requires agreement across the functions that use it. Reports without a current obligation or management decision should face challenge before entering the build schedule.

Match the requirement to Business Central

The project team compares each approved requirement with Business Central financial reports and analysis views. Microsoft describes its Power BI apps as “high-quality, ready-made models and visualisations” on which organisations can build. Their value lies in reducing development after the organisation has settled its measures and definitions, including ownership of the underlying data.

Microsoft’s standard apps cover functional areas across finance and operations. Executive measures drawing from payroll or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems require further design, while a specialised calculation might call for an adapted semantic model or an extension.

Forrester’s Business Central study modelled a 9% to 18% productivity improvement for finance and operations staff. Finance users in the study saved an estimated 15 hours a month through reporting automation. These figures establish a useful test for the reporting workstream: how much preparation and reconciliation will the proposed design remove?

Settle reporting before configuration

Complete the reporting assessment while the chart of accounts and dimensions remain open for decision, with historical-data scope included in the discussion. Microsoft stores migrated GP Historical Snapshot data in Business Central extension tables for use by Power BI and other reporting tools. The report logic applied in GP or Excel requires separate reconstruction.

The build schedule should link each approved output to its source and document its calculation. Before configuration begins, the report owner should confirm why it is required and set the reporting cadence. The team should record any control requirements against the same output.

Braintree’s Dynamics Discovery Assessment maps the approved reports to their data sources and records the calculations the Business Central environment must support. The resulting scope gives business owners and the implementation team a shared basis for the reporting workstream.

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Sources: Microsoft, “Dynamics GP data migrated to Business Central”; Microsoft, “Install Power BI apps for Business Central”; Microsoft, “Access open-sourced Power BI apps”; APQC, “Moving to the Next Level of Financial Planning and Analysis”; Forrester, “The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central”; Gartner, “Data Quality: Why It Matters and How to Achieve It”.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Microsoft ending support for Dynamics GP, and what does that practically mean for my business?

Microsoft is ending support for Dynamics GP to concentrate investment on cloud ERP, principally Dynamics 365 Business Central. GP will not be developed further. For your business, this means a fixed deadline. After GP’s end-of-support dates, Microsoft will stop issuing tax and regulatory updates, security patches and technical support. Your system will still run, but over time it will fall behind on compliance, become harder to secure, and grow more difficult to integrate with modern tools. The longer you stay on GP past those dates, the more those risks compound.

You can do both, but a pure like-for-like move often leaves a lot of value on the table. Many organisations take the opportunity to simplify charts of accounts, move to dimension-driven reporting, replace manual workarounds and retire legacy add-ons when they move to Business Central. The safest pattern is usually a phased approach: first ensure core processes and reporting work at least as well as they did in GP, then layer on improvements such as new analytics, automation, integrations and additional modules. Braintree’s methodology is built around that principle: protect business-critical processes first, then help you unlock the extra value that Business Central makes possible.
You will not lose your history. Microsoft’s GP migration tool moves core master data, opening balances and historical transactional data into Business Central, including customers, vendors, items and general ledger information. Historical GP data typically lands in dedicated tables that you can still access for audit and reporting, without cluttering new transactions.
Many organisations also keep a read-only GP instance or export deeper history to a data warehouse or Azure Data Lake for long-term analysis and compliance. Braintree helps you decide which approach suits your data volume, retention requirements and budget.
Microsoft’s cloud migration tool supports GP 2015 and later. It migrates multiple companies’ setup, master data and transactional history into Business Central Online, covering core modules including general ledger, payables, receivables and inventory.
If you’re on an older version, you have two options:
  • Upgrade to GP 2015 first, then use the standard migration tool
  • Go straight to a full Business Central implementation, bypassing the migration tool entirely
Note that SQL Server 2016 or later is also required. Customers on older GP versions are often running older SQL infrastructure too, so it’s worth checking both together.
Braintree will assess your current GP and SQL versions early in the process and recommend the most practical path.
The three areas that cause the most problems in GP migrations are customisations, integrations and data quality.
  • Customisations and add-ons built for GP often have no direct equivalent in Business Central. Some can be replaced by native BC functionality or AppSource solutions, others can’t. The risk is discovering this too late.
  • Integrations to payroll systems, CRMs, ecommerce platforms or industry-specific tools are frequently undocumented and complex. When they break post-migration, the impact is immediate.
  • Data quality is the most consistently underestimated risk. Years of accumulated inconsistencies don't migrate cleanly and can corrupt reporting and opening balances.
Braintree manages these risks through a structured pre-migration assessment that covers your GP environment, customisation inventory, integrations and data quality before any migration work begins. That early visibility drives the migration design, so the risks are planned for.
You don’t need a full-time internal project army, but you do need engaged champions in finance, IT and, where relevant, operations. Finance usually leads decisions on chart of accounts, dimensions, reporting, approvals and cutover timing; IT typically leads on integrations, security, identity and any on-prem infrastructure dependencies. Braintree handles the heavy technical lifting, including the GP-specific mapping and configuration decisions that typically consume the most internal time. Your subject-matter experts are essential for confirming designs, validating migrated data, testing critical processes and supporting change management.
For most finance and operations users, Business Central feels like an evolution rather than a completely new system. Core concepts such as the general ledger, customers, vendors, items, document posting and period-end processes carry over, even though the screens and workflows are modernised. Business Central’s browser-based interface, search, personalised views and Microsoft 365 integration are different from GP’s classic client, but many teams adapt quickly with role-based training and a period of dual running. Braintree’s GP-experienced consultants also help by explaining Business Central “in GP language” so users can connect new features back to what they already know.
If you only compare licence line items, Business Central can look like an added cost. But once you factor in ageing servers, storage, backups, datacentre costs, GP/SQL upgrades, third-party support and the risk of unsupported software, staying on GP is rarely cheaper over a 3–5 year horizon. Business Central’s subscription model shifts you to predictable operating expenditure, removes most infrastructure spend and includes updates and new features as part of the service. Microsoft’s Bridge to the Cloud 3 offer for eligible customers also provides significant licence discounts and dual-use rights, which Braintree can help you structure to avoid “double paying” during the transition.

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