In this episode of the Admiral Navigator, host Dominick Zappia sits down with Amit Nalani, CFO at Vaswani, to discuss the company’s journey from Microsoft Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 Business Central. Amit shares the motivations, challenges, and wins from their migration, offering firsthand insights for finance and IT leaders considering a similar move. The conversation explores why Business Central has become the platform of choice, the importance of process analysis, the role of implementation partners, and how embracing change has led to greater efficiency and user satisfaction. Tune in for practical advice and lessons learned from a real-world digital transformation.

Key Discussion Points:

• Organizations are moving from Microsoft Dynamics GP to Business Central due to Microsoft's increased investment in Business Central, the growing need for cloud-based, remotely accessible solutions, and the advanced AI capabilities shaping the future of finance technology.

• Before migrating, it’s vital to thoroughly analyze and understand current processes, identify potential gaps or red flags, and address them to ensure a smooth transition.

• Evaluating alternative ERP options, such as NetSuite, is important, but Microsoft’s cost incentives and trust in experienced partners like Admiral play a key role in the decision to choose Business Central.

• The migration can present challenges, such as adapting to new tools (like dimensions versus analytical accounting), replicating custom forms, and navigating user adoption hurdles—making effective training and internal champions essential.

• Business Central provides more granular and powerful reporting through dimensions, streamlines invoicing and warehouse operations, and replaces legacy tools (e.g., bill.com) with native functionality.

• Integrations with Power BI and third-party tools to further extend Business Central’s reporting and automation capabilities.

• Successful migration relies on working with knowledgeable partners who understand both technology and accounting, remaining open-minded to new processes, and actively engaging with the Business Central user community for ongoing support and learning.

Notable Quotes:

• “With GP, we were hosting it in our office. That was fine, 15 years ago when we were all in the office. But now our team is throughout the country and actually throughout the world... The idea of moving to a platform in the cloud was appealing to us.”

• “Once people saw the tool and got a little bit used to it, they didn’t want to go back. The simplicity, the efficiency—it just moves so much quicker.”

• “You really need to have an open mind and don’t get stuck thinking, ‘GP did it that way.’ Most of our processes, we found BC is actually superior.”

• “One of the biggest improvements is the ability to use dimensions in Business Central. The reporting is much more powerful and granular than in GP.”

• “The forms and the look and feel in Business Central is much better than in GP. But take the time to understand what you need before you start, because that was more challenging than I expected.”

• “Complexity is navigable with the right partner.”