NAV to Business Central Upgrade vs. Fresh Implementation — Which Is Better?

jackryan365

Hello everyone,

We’re currently evaluating our options for moving from Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Business Central, and we’d love to hear insights from others who have gone through this process.

The main question is:

Is it better to upgrade from NAV to Business Central, or start fresh with a new implementation?

We’re considering factors such as:

Data migration complexity

Cost and timeline

Customizations and extensions

Process re-engineering

Cloud vs. on-premise strategy

Long-term maintenance and scalability

If you’ve already made the transition — or are planning one — please share:

What approach you took (upgrade or fresh start)

Why you chose it

What challenges or benefits you experienced

Your experiences, lessons learned, and recommendations will really help others (and us!) make an informed decision.

Looking forward to your insights!

Jack Ryan

RockWithNAV

Starting a fresh means with all the master data and opening balances you can start your transactions. Question is what is first feasible for you, if the above can work then it will reduce a huge cost of upgradation but again you will have a empty database to start with, with upgrade you will get everything where you left the NAV version.

Addons you need to take care separately.

joostheger

Although we're starting fresh, our partner acadon in Germany is doing migrations from NAV to BC. Do its doable if you find the right parner.

RockWithNAV

Yes it's doable, You can land on to latest Business Central version from any prior version of Business Central or NAV.