SAP Business One or Business Central?
Choosing the Right ERP System
Are you faced with choosing an ERP solution for your company, and do you have a particular focus on the two market-leading solutions, Dynamics 365 Business Central and SAP Business One? Then you should read on.Because by choosing and implementing the ERP application that is best suited for your company, you can effectively manage and monitor the operations of your company, and seamlessly optimize business processes and create growth.
On this page, we will try to provide a detailed comparison of two of the most widespread business applications on the market, Business Central and SAP Business One, which may help you choose the best solution to meet your business needs.
Why Compare Business Central and SAP Business One?
SAP and Microsoft are two of the biggest players in the ERP market. Both companies offer business applications for businesses of all sizes, including the SMB segment, which Business Central and Business One are aimed at.
After a thorough review of the two solutions, you will be better able to choose which solution is best suited for your business and your employees.
What is Business Central?
Dynamics 365 Business Central is an ideal ERP solution for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but can also be easily used by large organizations.
Business Central is a cloud-based business app that delivers both proven and technologically groundbreaking features and capabilities designed to manage and automate various business processes to maximize efficiency in daily operations.
With D365 Business Central, you can manage a wide range of business areas, including finance, inventory, stock management, and project management. The flexibility of the solution allows you to easily customize and scale to meet your company's specific capacity needs.
Artificial Intelligence
AI in Business Central streamlines business operations by automating a wide range of routine tasks, helping you make smarter decisions by analyzing data, and offering intelligent insights through tools like Microsoft Copilot.
This helps you optimize business processes such as financial forecasting, inventory management, and customer service, ultimately improving the efficiency of your operations and supporting growth.
Extensions
You also have the option to integrate directly integrated third-party applications, also called extensions, to extend functionality and improve specific areas of your operations. For example, you can improve the management of your warehouse and stock management with the mobile warehouse management solution Mobile WMS from Tasklet Factory.
You can find extensions in Microsoft AppSource or your Business Central partner can develop them for you.
Designed for growth
With Business Central, you get a stable business platform that supports a wide range of business types and from which it is possible to operate companies within a wide range of different sectors, including tech, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, food and distribution. Scalability and flexibility make Business Central the ideal solution for companies striving to grow internationally.
Power BI integration
As your business grows, integrating comprehensive reporting solutions becomes a critical factor.
By seamlessly connecting Power BI with Business Central, you can quickly and easily generate real-time visual reports that track KPIs and effectively predict growth trends, improving decision-making and creating a foundation for strong strategic planning.
What is SAP Business One?
Although SAP Business One and Business Central have much in common and share many similar capabilities and features, SAP Business One often falls short when it comes to managing all aspects of a given business process, which in most cases Business Central handles out of the box.
Key Differences Between Business Central and SAP Business One
In the table below, we have listed some of the key differences between SAP Business One and Dynamics 365 Business Central.
| Dynamics 365 Business Central | SAP Business One | |
|---|---|---|
| Finance | Business Central offers financial management that can handle all your financial management needs, including advanced reporting, budgeting, and general ledger management. | SAP B1 has only limited financial management functionality, designed primarily for small businesses. |
| Inventory Management | Business Central has dedicated inventory management for managing and operating your warehouse, including monitoring, tracking, and controlling. | SAP Business One has tools for monitoring inventory levels across different locations and managing your inventory. |
| Sales Management | Business Central has built-in advanced sales management functionality as well as basic CRM functions. In addition, it is easy to integrate Dynamics 365 Sales if additional sales functionality is needed. | Compared to Business Central, SAP Business One has limited functionality that is only sufficient for small businesses. Medium-sized and large businesses will typically need the integration of advanced sales solutions. |
| Manufacturing | With advanced production planning and scheduling functionality, Business Central is an excellent choice for manufacturing companies and can also facilitate collaboration and connectivity between various departments, including production, quality, warehouse and supply chain. | SAP B1 only offers standard production functionality, which in some cases will be too inefficient to manage a range of production tasks and connect a wide range of processes, and also lacks dedicated features for handling production operations. |
| Customization | A key advantage of Business Central is the ability of the solution to be customized to specific business needs. Your Business Central partner can tailor the solution to suit your business goals, and you can also find a wealth of customizations in Microsoft AppSource. | SAP Business One is largely a standard solution that only provides basic functionality for all types of industries. If customization is needed, it is possible, but the customization options are limited. |
| Deployment | Both solutions offer both cloud and on-premise deployment options, but Business Central additionally offers a hybrid deployment model. | Since SAP Business One can be deployed both cloud and on-premise, it does not have a hybrid deployment option, which limits the ability to combine the benefits of both environments. |
| Scalability | Like other cloud solutions, Business Central offers scalability, but is also built on Microsoft Azure, which further enhances scalability and enables the management of significant amounts of data and transactions. | SAP Business One is better suited for small businesses that generate only a limited amount of data. |
As is clearly evident from the overview above, Dynamics 365 Business Central is capable of handling complex business scenarios in virtually all types of companies, whereas SAP Business One is designed for moderately complex operational processes in small businesses.
Pricing and Licensing
Both Business Central and SAP Business One have a pricing tier that everyone can join, but there are differences in what functionality is included in the different licenses for each solution.
Dynamics 365 Business Central Pricing
It is important to take a moment to understand the pricing and licensing structure for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, as the solution is offered at different tiers designed for different company sizes and business needs. This ensures that each company has the opportunity to choose the plan that best suits its needs.
Overall, Business Central is available in the following three versions.
Essentials
Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials delivers all the basic features you need to run and grow your business.
$70 per user/month
Premium
The Premium license has all the functionality of the Essential license. In addition, Premium includes service and production management.
$100 per user/month
Team Member
Team Member is for employees who are not assigned to a specific function in the company, but whose work still requires access to basic functionality in Business Central.
$8 per user/month
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Please note
You will need to initially choose between Essentials and Premium, as the Team Members license only allows read/view access. You can then select the number of Team Members licenses you need.
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SAP Business One
SAP Business One reportedly costs $94 per user/month for a Professional License subscription and $54 per user/month for a Limited License subscription.
However, SAP is not as transparent about pricing, and there is no pricing information on the product website. The prices listed above are estimates only. For exact pricing, please contact an SAP partner.
Implementation
SAP Business One and Dynamics 365 Business Central have in common that they can be implemented in two ways, either locally (on-premise) or in the cloud (on a remote server), and both solutions are also available exclusively through a network of certified partners.
With Business Central, your Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner is solely responsible for the implementation process and subsequent support. Your partner will also typically customize the solution to your specific business needs and can support you in daily operations and project management.
When you purchase a license for SAP Business One, SAP provides access to an online support portal where information is available on how to configure, implement and upgrade the application. In this portal, SAP Business One users can also change permissions, create reports and enhance the application with add-ons that extend functionality.
Conclusion
When choosing between the two ERP solutions, it is important to choose the solution and license whose functionality best matches your company's specific business needs.
Both SAP B1 and D365BC offer a wide range of functionality and valuable options, but Business Central is in most cases the preferred choice for small and medium-sized companies that have growth ambitions and are therefore looking for a solution that is flexible and can be easily scaled as the company expands.
So which ERP solution should you choose?
In many ways, Dynamics 365 Business Central is a stronger solution than SAP Business One, delivering far more flexibility, scalability, and lower implementation and ownership costs, making Business Central more attractive to both the SMB segment and large organizations.
Therefore, Business Central is likely to be the right solution for you and your company. You can also seamlessly integrate a wide range of business applications, as well as a wide range of productivity, communication, and collaboration tools, and it is seamless to connect to the Microsoft products that your company is likely already using.
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Disclaimer
We have worked with Business Central (formerly Navision and Dynamics NAV) for over twenty years and are certified Microsoft Dynamics 365 partners. Therefore, we are naturally biased and recommend that you obtain information from multiple sources when you need to obtain information about which of the two ERP solutions to choose.
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