What’s the right platform for your company D365 Business Central or D365 Finance & Supply Chain?

Posted On July 22, 2024 by Jimil Bhatt Posted in

Tagged in Business Central, D365 Finance and Operations

Introduction:

As a business owner, you might have come across a situation where you want to upgrade your current systems with renowned ERP solutions available on the market. One of the ERPs you would consider is Microsoft Dynamics. However, even choosing this would require a lot of brainstorming from all decision-makers because Microsoft Dynamics comes with two ERP platforms, i.e., Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain. I assume this brainstorming itself would have probably landed you on this article. Let’s dive into the key differences and use cases for each platform. Hopefully, by the end of the article, you will be able to make a decision and choose the right platform for your business.

Below are the key factors differentiating Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain:

Company Size: When determining company size, the usual factors that are considered are revenue and employee count. The definition of which can change based on the country you are located in. Here, for reference, we would consider the following:
– Revenue:
a. SME: Having revenue between 0 and 1 billion USD. Business Central is ideal for this size of company.
b. Large companies: Having revenue above 1 billion USD. Finance and Operations is the ideal platform for large organizations.
– Employees:
a. SME: having employees between 0 and 500.
b. Large companies: having more than 500 employees.
Number of Entities: If your company has multiple legal entities in multiple geographical locations across the world,
a. Business Central is ideal for companies with a single legal entity or multiple legal entities in the same country. Business Central allows you to create and manage individual products and accounts for each legal entity; however, it cannot be managed centrally.
b. Finance and supply chain are ideal for companies with multiple legal entities across the world. Finance & Supply Chain allows you to manage products and accounts centrally and release them centrally to each legal entity across the world.
Business Operations: Does your company have streamlined and simple operations?
a. Business Central can handle operations for companies with streamlined and simplified operations that do not require very detailed data capture or sophisticated reporting.
b. Finance & Supply Chain captures detailed data, covers a lot more processes than Business Central, and hence can provide robust and detailed reporting.
Future Growth: It is also important to consider what the growth plans are for your company. If you currently have 2–3 legal entities, you may be tempted to go with Business Central, as it comes with low implementation and operating costs, ease of use, and faster implementation timelines. However, ERP projects are not done frequently, and it is important that you consider future organizational plans.
Let’s say you intend to expand over the next three to five years into multiple different geographical areas. You should think about finance and supply chain as your organization’s go-to platform since this will be a big, long-term investment.
You might want to consider the following factors while making the decision:
– Licensing:
a. Since finance and supply chain are for large companies, they come with a minimum licensing requirement of 20 licenses.
b. Business Central is perfect for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) because it only requires one license and has no minimum licensing requirements.
– Implementation timelines:
a. Finance and Supply Chain has a typical implementation timeline of 6 months or more, considering the size of the implementation and global rollout.
b. Business Central can be up and running in 3–6 months.