Dynamics 365 Business Central | Licensing and Pricing Answers

This blog discusses Dynamics 365 Business Central licensing and pricing, explains the difference between license types, and the different types of users. This article also answers some questions we receive about what’s included in the license, how to purchase Business Central licenses, and the price of transitioning from your current ERP to Business Central. If you would prefer to see a presentation about this topic, please see the video at the end of the blog.

If you’d like to skip to a specific section, click on one of the topics below:

• Dynamics 365 Business Central Pricing
• Dynamics 365 Business Central License Types
  • Essentials
  • Premium
  • Team Member
• External Accountant License
• Full User vs. Additional User
• Named User Licensing
• Dynamics 365 Business Central Promotional Pricing
• Total Cost of Ownership
• Transitioning to Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Licensing and Pricing Recorded Presentation (Video)

Dynamics 365 Business Central Pricing

The table below summarizes the three main Dynamics 365 Business Central license types, their functionality, and price per user per month. More details about the functionality of each license type can be seen further in this article.

If you’re an existing Dynamics GP or Dynamics NAV client current on your annual maintenance, then you’re eligible for a 40% discount on Dynamics 365 Business Central licenses. To learn more, please see the Dynamics 365 Business Central Promotional Pricing table further in this article.

Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS pricing is on a per user per month basis and everything is included in one fee. The software, cloud hosting, and management services are combined into one price, they are not separate components. There is no additional fee to deploy on Azure. Microsoft has two data centers in Canada (Quebec and Ontario) and nine data centers in the United States. To see the full Microsoft Azure data center geographies, please see the Azure global infrastructure map.

In a Dynamics 365 Business Central license, there is one production environment and three sandbox environments at no extra charge. The license includes 80 GB of data storage capacity across the environments, but if additional storage is needed there are options to purchase additional data storage.

Dynamics 365 Business Central License Types

With Dynamics 365 Business Central licensing, there are subscription licensing options. We will discuss the difference between Business Central Essentials, Premium, and Teams licensing, as well as Full Users versus Additional Users.

Three types of Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing:

• Business Central Essentials (Full user)
• Business Central Premium (Full user)
• Team Members (Additional user)

Customers must license at least one Business Central Essentials or Business Central Premium, meaning that there has to be at least one license.

Business Central Essentials and Business Central Premium licenses cannot be mixed and matched. Customers must have one license or the other, but not both. Team Members can be added on as an additional user to either the Essentials or Premium licensing.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials

Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials has a wide range of capabilities that are core functions a business requires.

What’s included in Essentials?

• Financial Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Human Resources Management
• Project Management
• Warehouse Management

The functionality outlined in the screenshots below is what is available out of the box:

The functionality in Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials is similar to Dynamics GP, but in certain areas it goes a little deeper. There are benefits of having dimensional accounting in Business Central rather than a segmented chart of accounts.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium

The Premium license has everything in the Essentials license plus service management and manufacturing.

What’s included in Premium?

• Includes Essentials capabilities
• Service Order Management
• Manufacturing

In Dynamics GP, the core manufacturing is finite not process, so manufacturing in Dynamics 365 Business Central is very attractive to those clients that have process manufacturing.

Team Members

The Team Members license gives some basic Dynamics 365 Business Central functionality. There are certain things that users with a Team license can write to, but they can read everything within Business Central. A Team license is similar to a light user or a self-service user in Dynamics GP.

For example, Team Member license users can:

• Read data in Business Central
• Update existing data and entries
• Approve or reject tasks in the workflow assigned to a user
• Create, edit, and delete a sales or purchase quote
• Create, edit, delete personal information
• Enter job time sheets for approval
• Use the Power Apps or Power Automate Use Rights with the Dynamics 365 license

To share a report, does the recipient need a Team Member license?

No, they would not require a Team Member license. This is a common scenario we’ve received questions about from Dynamics GP users that use management reporter to share reports with directors through email or in a shared drive. This capability is also in Dynamics 365 Business Central through account schedules or Jet Reports, you can generate reports and put them in a shared place without the directors needing a Team license.

External Accountant License

The External Accountant is a complimentary license within the Essentials or Premium license. This license is helpful if your organization has an external user/accountant that is not part of your organization, but needs access to your records for reporting or tax purposes. External Accountants are a complimentary license, with up to three available, that come with a Business Central subscription. The External Accountant cannot be purchased on its own. Please see our blog article to learn how to add External Accounts in Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Full User vs. Additional User

A full user has full functionality and features available to them, and an additional user has less functionality but can still consume reports and complete light tasks.

Full User

Full users are those that require the feature-rich business application functionality. Examples of full users are salespeople, customer service representatives, finance employees, controllers, or supply chain managers. These users have also been referred to in the past as professional users or full-use users. Essentials and Premium are both full-use users and are licensed with a Dynamics 365 Business Central subscription.

Additional User

Additional users often represent a significant percentage of users in an organization and they consume data reports from lines of business systems, complete light tasks such as time or expense entry, or HR record updates. Additional users may be heavier users of the system, but do not require full user capability. Additional users are licensed with a Team Members license.

Named User Licensing

A ‘named user’ means that every individual requires a separate user license, and they cannot be shared. This also means that  customers may not mix and match Essentials and Premium users. Customers must license either Essentials or Premium, not both. It is possible to move from one to the other, so if you’re on Essentials and you’d like to move to Premium, then that change can happen.

If your business hires a new employee, it’s easy to add an additional license for them in Business Central. In this case, you would email us and very shortly afterwards it would be available.

If you’re coming from Dynamics GP and were on perpetual licensing, then you may be used to concurrent users instead of named users.

How do you Purchase a Dynamics 365 Business Central License?

Dynamics 365 Business Central licenses can only be purchased through a Microsoft Partner. Contact us if you have further questions about purchasing licenses.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Promotional Pricing

For existing Dynamics GP or Dynamics NAV clients who are current on their annual maintenance, they’re eligible to receive a 40% discount on Dynamics 365 Business Central licenses. The discount is reflected in the promotional pricing listed below. Dynamics 365 Business Central pricing is on a per user per month basis.

With the promotional pricing, please note that the Business Central licenses need to have an annual total greater than or equal to their Enhancement Plan renewal amount.

 
Learn more about the Bridge to the Cloud licensing promotion.

Total Cost of Ownership

If you’re currently using an on-premises solution and considering moving to Dynamics 365 Business Central in the cloud, there are some factors to consider in your total cost of ownership over the long term. We have a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Excel spreadsheet that allows you to enter your data to see the cost of your current software and hosting, versus moving to a software as a service (SaaS) solution. Encore can work with you or guide you through the TCO spreadsheet, adding in those different variables and helping you choose how many licenses your business would need going forward.

Transitioning to Dynamics 365 Business Central

Many users are looking to move from their current ERP solution to Dynamics 365 Business Central. Some scenarios of clients include: if you’re a Dynamics GP client looking to transition to a cloud solution, if you’re a Dynamics NAV client looking to upgrade, or are on QuickBooks, NetSuite, or Sage, and would like to migrate to Business Central.

If you’re an SMB on QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage, or another non-Microsoft ERP solution, try out our Dynamics 365 Business Central Implementation Price Calculator.

If you’re a Dynamics GP or Dynamics NAV user, please reach out to your Encore Account Manager or contact us to discuss the best approach for your transition to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing and Pricing Recorded Presentation

To hear the original presentation about Licensing and Pricing Answers in Dynamics 365 Business Central, please see the video below:

Some key moments in this video are:

• Business Central User Types – Full user vs. Additional User – 1:20
• Business Central Subscription Pricing – Essentials vs. Premium vs. Team Member – 2:45
• Deployment with Software as a Service – 6:25
• Business Central License Pricing – 8:05
• Ongoing Business Central Benefits – 10:55

If you have questions about Dynamics 365 Business Central licensing and pricing, reach out to your Encore Account Manager or fill out the form below:

Please note that all pricing is subject to change without notice. Always contact Encore for the most current product pricing.