Quick Answer:
Moving from Dynamics NAV to Business Central means using Microsoft’s cloud migration pipeline for Business Central to bring your data, setup, and history into the cloud. First plan your process (and ask key questions), clean up master data, then migrate NAV to Business Central online and validate real-world processes before go-live.
If you’ve been running your operations on Dynamics NAV for years, you’re not alone. Fortunately, neither are you stuck there. Microsoft has invested heavily in tools to help organizations move from Dynamics NAV to Business Central without rebuilding everything from scratch. The centerpiece of that effort is Microsoft’s cloud migration pipeline for Business Central, which gives businesses like yours a structured, supported path instead of a risky “go big or go home” project.
In this post, we’ll walk through how to migrate your NAV deployment to Business Central online using Microsoft’s native migration tooling inside Dynamics 365 Business Central. We’ll look at what happens to your data, how to plan a Dynamics NAV upgrade to Business Central, and where extensions, integrations, and customizations fit into the journey.
This will, in effect, be a short NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central step by step guide, considering what to do first, what to clean up before you migrate, and how to validate that the new environment is ready for your finance and operations teams. Along the way, we’ll highlight practical tips we’ve learned from various Dynamics 365 Business Central migration projects so you can approach your Business Central cloud migration with fewer surprises and a lot more confidence.
IES Pro Tip: Before you even touch the cloud migration pipeline Business Central offers, sketch a one-page vision. Answer questions like: why you’re leaving NAV, what success looks like in Business Central, and how you’ll measure it. You’ll be surprised how often that simple document keeps the project from drifting.
Before you touch a migration tool, you should pause, get together with your team, and make sure you’re all clear on why you’re moving from Dynamics NAV to Business Central right now. A successful Business Central migration project starts with business objectives, not just “technology has changed and we want to adopt it.”
Ask a few questions up front:
This is also where you map the process out for your stakeholders. Finance, operations, IT, and sometimes sales all experience Dynamics 365 Business Central migration differently. Getting them aligned on priorities now gives you a NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central step-by-step roadmap that reflects real-world usage instead of just what’s in the chart of accounts.
IES Pro Tip: Turn your “are we ready?” conversation into something tangible. Ask finance, operations, and IT to each write down three NAV frustrations and three Business Central outcomes they care about most. Compare, merge, and prioritize. That short list becomes your scope filter. If an idea doesn’t support it, it can wait. (Bonus – this also works on wedding planning.)
One of the biggest favors you can do for yourself is to treat the change from NAV to Business Central as a chance to get in touch with your internal Marie Kondo and declutter. If you migrate Dynamics NAV to Business Central with over a decade of half-maintained data and mystery customizations, the cloud can’t magically fix that for you. At best, it preserves the mess in a newer UI.
Begin with the basics your teams touch every day:
Merge duplicates, close out records you no longer use, and standardize naming conventions. The cleaner your master data is in NAV, the easier it will be to migrate NAV to Business Central online and trust the numbers you see on day one. This is also the ideal moment to retire old codes that finance has been grumbling about for years.
Next, look at your overall landscape:
For many organizations, the smartest approach to moving your NAV deployment to Dynamics Business Central is to migrate active companies and relevant historical periods, while archiving older data elsewhere. Review your modifications and plan which ones should be rebuilt as extensions, replaced with standard Business Central functionality, or simply left behind as you move into the cloud migration pipeline Business Central provides.
Once data has been moved through the cloud migration pipeline Business Central provides, resist the urge to immediately flip the switch. This should be seen as a pilot environment more than anything else. At this stage, prove that it can support real work before calling the Dynamics NAV to Business Central project “done.”
Start with end-to-end processes your teams rely on every day:
Have finance and operations users perform these tasks themselves in Dynamics 365 Business Central migration test companies and compare results to NAV. The goal is not only to confirm that balances match, but that the workflows feel natural and that posting routines, approvals, and integrations behave as expected.
Then, validate edge cases: foreign currency transactions, partial shipments, discounts, and year-end routines. Where you find differences, document whether they’re due to genuine Business Central improvements or issues that need configuration tweaks. By the time you migrate NAV to Business Central online for production, your teams should have seen the system in motion and know exactly what to expect on day one.
IES Pro Tip: Don’t aim for a perfect cleanse; aim for a consistent one. Start with a single area (e.g., customers) and define clear rules: what gets merged, what gets closed, what gets renamed, and what never makes it into Business Central at all. Document those rules, apply them, then move to items, vendors, and dimensions using the same playbook.
Migrating from Dynamics NAV to Business Central is easier when you’re not figuring it out alone. IES has guided countless organizations through Dynamics 365 Business Central migration projects, from planning and cleanup to go-live and support. Ready to move to the cloud with confidence? Talk to IES before you start.