Is Business Central the same as Dynamics NAV?
By Emil Björk · Microsoft business apps consultant, Gothenburg
Business Central is the direct successor to Dynamics NAV — same core codebase lineage, rebranded and moved to SaaS by Microsoft. An on-premises NAV installation can be upgraded to Business Central; the object model, extension approach, and much of the functional design carry over, though the modern extension-only customisation model replaced NAV's older direct-modification approach.
Microsoft renamed NAV to Business Central and, at the same time, introduced the cloud SaaS version alongside a continuing on-premises option. Existing NAV customers did not lose their system — they're on a defined upgrade path, and most of what a NAV consultant already knows (tables, pages, the object-oriented development model) still applies directly to Business Central.
The bigger change isn't the name, it's the extension model. Older NAV customisations directly modified base objects; Business Central's AL extensions can only extend the base application through events and extension objects, which is what makes twice-yearly upgrades non-breaking. A NAV customer with heavy direct-modification customisation typically needs to re-platform those customisations as extensions during the move, not just click upgrade.
Go deeper
- Business Central vs Dynamics NAVWhat changed in the move from Dynamics NAV to Business Central, and what that means for organisations still running NAV.
- What is Business Central?A practical introduction to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central — the SaaS ERP for small and mid-sized businesses.
- Business Central on-premises vs SaaSThe real differences between Business Central on-premises and the SaaS (online) deployment — features, customisations, costs.