Business Central implementation in 90 days, not nine months.
A practical guide to implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central quickly and cost-effectively, and the traps that turn ERP implementation projects into year-long sagas.
Why most Business Central implementations take too long.
Traditional ERP implementations follow a simple but expensive formula: scope everything upfront, charge a large discovery fee before building anything, then try to implement the entire business at once. The result is a 12-18 month Dynamics 365 project, a significant budget, and a business that has already changed by the time the system goes live.
The over-scoping trap is the single biggest reason Business Central implementations fail. When you replace every process, train every team, and configure every module simultaneously, nothing gets done well, and nobody ends up using the system properly.
For small and medium-sized businesses, that approach is especially damaging. SMBs do not have a dedicated ERP project team, a full-time systems accountant, or 18 months of runway to wait for value. What they need is a Business Central implementation that delivers working finance processes in weeks.
"Other partners charge you to scope before they've built a single thing. That fee, sometimes £20,000-£50,000, simply doesn't exist at Truly SMB. After 15+ years of SMB implementations, we already know where to start."
Three phases. Fixed price. Live in weeks, not months.
Truly SMB's pack model breaks a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation into logical, fixed-scope stages. You only pay to build what your business needs right now. Everything else waits until you are ready for it.
Go live in 8 weeks
Core finance, sales and purchase ledgers, bank reconciliation, cash flow and standard financial reporting. Replaces spreadsheets and disconnected accounting software with a single source of truth.
Add modules when ready
Inventory management, project accounting, warehousing and manufacturing. Each is a fixed-price Business Central module implementation, added when the business genuinely needs it.
Custom development & BI
Power BI dashboards, third-party integrations and custom development. Introduced once clean data exists and your team understands the system, so it delivers real value.
Five mistakes that kill ERP implementation projects.
These are the Business Central implementation mistakes we see repeatedly across UK SMBs. Every one of them is avoidable.
Scoping everything before building anything
A three-month ERP discovery phase means the business has changed before the build even starts. Fixed-scope implementation packs remove this entirely, because we know what to build before we arrive.
Implementing all Business Central modules at once
When finance, inventory, warehousing and sales all go live simultaneously, no one masters anything. Staff resist the change, data quality suffers, and the ERP system gets blamed for problems it did not cause.
Building Power BI dashboards before the data is clean
Advanced reporting on messy data produces wrong answers faster. Go live on standard Business Central first, establish clean dimensions and a sensible chart of accounts, then build your reporting layer on top. Our reporting guide explains the right order.
Migrating every record from the old system
A new ERP is a chance to clean up. Migrating years of messy historical data from Sage, Xero or QuickBooks carries old problems forward. Agree what genuinely needs to come across, and what does not. See how the platforms compare: Sage & Xero or QuickBooks.
Training everyone on day one
Staff trained weeks before go-live forget everything. Truly SMB trains the right people at the right time, just before they need to use the system, which is why adoption sticks.
What a Business Central implementation timeline actually looks like.
Here is how a typical fixed-price Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation runs from kickoff to go-live.
Project kickoff, chart of accounts agreement and data mapping. No lengthy discovery phase. No scoping invoice.
System configuration, test environment and parallel running. Your finance team reviews in real time, not at the end of a three-month build.
Data migration from your existing accounting system, just-in-time user training, and final sign-off.
Live finance operations running on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Ongoing support starts immediately.
The Microsoft licence costs the same whoever implements it. What changes is the implementation and scoping fee layered on top, and with Truly SMB that scoping fee does not exist. The pack price includes configuration, data migration, training and go-live support.
Business Central implementation questions, answered.
How long does a Business Central implementation take?
Most SMBs go live on core finance within eight weeks using a fixed-scope Kickstart pack. Larger or more complex implementations that include inventory, projects or manufacturing typically run in phases after the initial go-live, rather than extending the first project.
How much does a Business Central implementation cost in the UK?
There are three costs: the fixed-price implementation pack, the Microsoft Dynamics 365 licence (billed per user, per month, and identical whoever your partner is), and an ongoing support plan. Traditional partners often add a separate discovery or scoping fee of £20,000 to £50,000 on top. Truly SMB does not charge one.
Can we migrate from Sage, Xero or QuickBooks?
Yes. Migration from Sage 50, Xero and QuickBooks is one of the most common routes into Business Central for growing SMBs. More detail in our Business Central FAQs Open balances, customer and supplier records and item lists migrate as standard. We will advise on which historical data is genuinely worth bringing across.
Is Business Central suitable for a small business?
Business Central is designed to scale from small teams up to large enterprises. It is typically the right next step for businesses that have outgrown entry-level accounting software and need proper audit trails, multi-user access, dimension-based reporting and a platform that grows with them.
Start your Business Central implementation.
Talk to the Truly SMB team about a fixed-price Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation. No lengthy discovery calls, no obligation, and no scoping invoice just for turning up.
