Finance & ERP
Cloud accounting with unlimited users — the adviser-channel favourite
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
The Microsoft ERP sized — and priced — for small and mid-sized businesses
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Best for: Small and mid-sized businesses already in the Microsoft ecosystem that have outgrown accounting software and want a real ERP without enterprise implementation weight.
Business Central is the SME tier of Microsoft's ERP family — the descendant of Navision, rebuilt as a cloud service, and in our view the sensible default when a business in the Microsoft ecosystem outgrows accounting software. It is a real ERP, not a bigger bookkeeping tool: general ledger, dimensions-based reporting, inventory, purchasing, sales orders, jobs, assembly and (on Premium) manufacturing and service management, in one system with one data model.
Agent-driven workflow automation in Business Central. Image: Microsoft.
The strengths cluster around two things. First, the finance core is genuinely strong — decades of Navision accounting DNA show in areas like dimensions, posting groups and audit trails. Second, the Microsoft 365 integration is the everyday selling point: edit records in Excel and publish back, handle documents from Outlook, work inside Teams. Around that sits the largest SME ERP partner network in the world and AppSource, an ecosystem of thousands of extensions built in AL, Business Central's extension language — vertical add-ons rarely require custom development from scratch.
The trade-offs are worth stating plainly. You will almost certainly need a partner to implement it well — Business Central is sold through partners and its flexibility (posting setups, dimensions design) is easy to configure badly. Per-user pricing at $80 (Essentials) to $110 (Premium) per month, paid yearly (verified August 2026, after Microsoft's recent list-price increase), adds up against the accounting software it replaces. And the page-based UX, while much improved, still carries quirks that new users notice — deceptively similar pages, modal depth, a learning curve around posting routines.
Full hands-on testing of the current Business Central release and its Copilot features is in progress; this profile reflects Microsoft's published documentation and our ERP advisory and implementation-ecosystem experience.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $80 per user/month | Finance, inventory, purchasing, sales, jobs — the core ERP, paid yearly (verified Aug 2026) |
| Premium | $110 per user/month | Everything in Essentials plus manufacturing and service management, paid yearly (verified Aug 2026) |
| Team Members | $8 per user/month | Read access and light tasks — approvals, time sheets, lookups (verified Aug 2026) |
| Implementation (partner) | Custom | Partner-quoted; a straightforward finance-first implementation typically runs weeks to a few months |
Key features
- Finance & dimensions — Strong GL with dimension-based reporting and audit trails
- Inventory & supply chain — Items, warehousing, purchasing and sales order processing
- Manufacturing & service (Premium) — Production orders, BOMs, capacity and service management
- Microsoft 365 integration — Excel editing, Outlook document handling, Teams access
- AppSource extensions — Thousands of AL-built add-ons for vertical requirements
- Copilot assistance — Reconciliation help, sales-line suggestions, analysis chat
Pros and cons
What we like
- Genuinely strong finance core with decades of Navision DNA
- Everyday Microsoft 365 integration — Excel, Outlook, Teams
- Largest SME ERP partner network and a deep AppSource ecosystem
- AL extensibility keeps customisations upgrade-safe
- Sensible per-user pricing for what a real ERP delivers
What could be better
- Partner dependency: hard to implement well without one
- Per-user costs add up against the accounting software it replaces
- UX quirks and a real learning curve around posting routines
Integrations
Our verdict
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