Guide · Cost and timeline
Dynamics 365 migration cost and timeline
There is no honest price list for ERP migrations. There is a short list of factors that set the cost and the schedule, and most of them are in your control.
Two separate budgets
Licences are a recurring subscription paid to Microsoft (or through a reseller), priced per user per month. Microsoft publishes current Business Central pricing; Finance & Operations is priced separately and depends on the apps you need.
Services are the one-off cost of the migration project itself. This is the number that varies most, and it is set by the factors below.
What drives services cost and time
| Factor | Why it matters | How to reduce it |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Each company, currency, country and module adds configuration, data and testing. | Phase the rollout: core finance first, the rest after go-live. |
| Customisations | Custom code is rebuilt, replaced or retired. It is the most common source of overruns. | Retire anything nobody can explain. Prefer standard features and AppSource apps. |
| Integrations | Every interface needs rebuilding on supported APIs and end-to-end testing. | List them all early, including the spreadsheets that act as integrations. |
| Data and history | More history means more mapping, more rehearsal time and more reconciliation. | Bring open items and a limited window of history; archive the rest read-only. |
| Data quality | Duplicates and inactive records slow every rehearsal. | Clean up in the old system before the first rehearsal. |
| Your team’s time | Testing, decisions and sign-offs need people who know the business. | Name owners and protect their time during test cycles. |
Timeline
A single-company move from GP, NAV or SL to Business Central with light customisation is planned in months. Multi-entity, heavily customised and AX-to-Finance & Operations projects run longer, because data upgrade rehearsals and testing take longer. Work back from the support end date that applies to you, and leave room for at least two full data migration rehearsals.
We do not publish averages we cannot back up. You get dates after the assessment, tied to your scope.
Cost and timeline questions
How much does a Dynamics 365 migration cost?
It depends on four things more than anything else: how many legal entities and modules you run, how much custom code and how many integrations you carry, how much history you bring forward, and how much of the work your own team can take on. We give you a written scope and price after a short assessment, not a number off a rate card. Licence pricing is published by Microsoft.
How long does a migration to Business Central take?
A single-company move from GP, NAV or SL with light customisation is typically planned in months, not years. Multi-entity, heavily customised or AX-to-Finance & Operations projects take longer. The honest answer comes out of the assessment, where we map your data, code and integrations and put dates against them.
Do we have to bring all of our historical data across?
No. Most companies bring master data, open balances and open transactions, plus a limited window of history, and keep the old system or an archive read-only for audit. Microsoft's GP cloud migration, for example, lets you choose how many historical years to move. Source: Microsoft Learn — GP data migrated to Business Central.
Next step
Tell us what you run today.
Current system and version, number of companies and users, and any deadline. We reply with the questions we need answered and a time to talk.