Sage to Business Central: What UK Businesses Need to Know

Not every business on Sage needs to move. The ones that benefit from Business Central usually have outgrown single-company accounting, are stitching spreadsheets and add-ons together, and want one system across finance, sales, stock and operations.

This guide walks through the trade-offs both ways, so you can decide whether a move is right for you.

Key PointMoving is not always the right answer. Count the signs first, then decide.

Signs you have outgrown your current system

• consolidation across companies or currencies is done in Excel every month-end;
• stock needs have grown: assemblies, several locations, landed costs or warehouse workflows;
• more people need access at once, with tighter permissions;
• reporting lives in exported spreadsheets;
• the CRM, e-commerce platform and ledger do not talk to each other, so data is retyped.

One or two of these may be solvable with an add-on or a higher edition of what you have. Several at once is when a move is worth costing properly.

What Business Central gives you

• One data model across finance, sales, purchasing, inventory and projects, with Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, Excel and Teams alongside.
• Dimensions instead of a sprawling chart of accounts. Microsoft's dimensions guide explains that they can indicate the project or department an entry came from, so you do not need separate accounts for each.
• Regular updates. Business Central online gets two major updates a year, in April and October.
• UK VAT. The UK version supports Making Tax Digital for VAT submissions to HMRC.

Pro TipDecide early how payroll will connect, because Business Central imports payroll transactions from your provider rather than running payroll itself.

The trade-offs to weigh

Business Central is a bigger system. For a small team with simple bookkeeping, it can be more than you need, and the learning curve is real.

Payroll is the other big question. Business Central's payroll import brings in the financial transactions made by your payroll provider and posts them to the general ledger. So you keep a separate payroll system and decide early how it connects.

What the migration involves

You do not lift your whole Sage database across. Microsoft's guide to importing data covers the templates and configuration packages used to load accounts, customers, vendors and items.

• Data: master data and open items, with closed history kept available in the old system.
• Configuration: posting groups, VAT, dimensions, number series, approvals and permissions.
• Integrations: CRM, e-commerce, payroll, expenses and bank feeds, each scoped separately.
• People: training, a cutover plan and a named internal owner.

Plan how old records stay available: GOV.UK says a company must keep records for 6 years from the end of the last financial year they relate to.

Watch OutClean your data before you move it. Migrating a mess only relocates it.

Time and cost

Time and cost depend on the number of companies, integrations and customisations, how clean your data is, and how much time your own team can give. Be wary of any quote that has not asked about all of these.

For a standard scope, Amplio's BC Fast-Start takes a business live in twelve weeks for £4,500 fixed. It is aimed at businesses that already hold Business Central licences.

When not to move yet

• you are in the middle of a year-end or a heavy audit;
• your data needs cleaning first, because migrating it as it is only moves the problem;
• nobody inside the business has time to own the project;
• your only reason is that the system feels old.

Our Sage 50 migration guide and practical migration guide go further. For independent guidance, see the ICAEW technology resources, or talk to us.