From NAV to Business Central with Magento

From NAV to Business Central: what happens to the Magento integration?

Moving from Dynamics NAV to Business Central is not just an ERP project.

If Magento or Adobe Commerce is an important part of your business, it is also an e-commerce project. Because when the ERP system moves, data still has to find its way between the webshop, the warehouse, finance, customers and perhaps a whole host of other systems.

That may sound like a big mouthful.

And it is, a bit.

But with the right plan it does not have to turn into a round of system gymnastics where everyone holds their breath until the first order goes through.

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The Magento integration has to be included from the start

A classic mistake is to treat the Magento integration as something you deal with just after the ERP migration.

That can get expensive.

The webshop is often dependent on data from NAV: products, stock, prices, customers, orders and delivery status. If that logic has not been scoped out before you go live with Business Central, you risk errors in operations at the very moment you least want them.

That is why the Magento integration should be part of the preliminary analysis from day one.

Read more about NAV webshop integration at Connectify.

Start by mapping what works today

Before you build anything new, you need to know what is already in play.

Draw up an overview of your current data flows:

• How do orders get from Magento to NAV?
• Where does the stock status come from?
• Who controls prices and discounts?
• How are customers and customer accounts created?
• How are delivery status and tracking sent back to the webshop?
• Are PIM, WMS, 3PL, payment solutions or marketplaces part of the architecture?

It is tempting simply to look at the old integration and say: “We will do it the same way again.”

But the move to Business Central is also an obvious opportunity to tidy up. Perhaps there are manual workflows that can be automated. Perhaps data is updated in two places today. Perhaps there are integrations you no longer need at all.

Not everything old needs to be carried along. Fortunately.

Choose the migration path with your eyes open

Not all NAV solutions can be moved in the same way. Customisations, data quality and the version of NAV all matter to the project.

Microsoft describes both a full migration and a reimplementation with the most important data as possible routes, depending on the starting point. See Microsoft’s current guidance on migrating from NAV to Business Central.

Whichever path you choose, the Magento data flow should have its own plan. You need clarity on what is being moved, what is being built anew, and what the webshop has to be able to do on the other side.

The five steps that should be part of the plan

1. Map data and customisations

Find out where your data lives today, and which NAV customisations affect Magento.

That applies in particular to item data, prices, customers, stock, orders, invoicing and delivery. If a process today depends on a particular NAV customisation, you need to establish whether it exists, has to be built, or can be done without in Business Central.

2. Tidy up before the move

A migration is a good time to tackle duplicates, old items, inactive customers and processes nobody uses any more.

It is not always fun. But it is markedly better to tidy up before the data is moved than to carry the mess over into the new solution.

3. Define the new data flow

Here you have to decide which system owns which data.

Business Central will often be the source of truth for items, stock, customer accounts and price logic, while Magento owns the customer experience, the content and the checkout process. But that depends on your setup.

Read our guide on data flow between Magento and Business Central for a more detailed walkthrough.

4. Test real everyday scenarios

Do not test just one completely ordinary order.

Also test a B2B customer with a special price, an order with a discount, a back order, a refund, an order with several delivery addresses and an item that has just gone out of stock.

It is in the corners that the errors hide.

A good test should follow the whole journey: from Magento to Business Central and back again with order status, delivery and invoice.

5. Plan go-live and the time afterwards

On moving day itself it has to be clear:

• When the old integrations stop.
• When the new data flows are activated.
• Who approves stock, prices and orders.
• Who handles errors.
• How you reconcile that the data actually matches.

It is a good idea to produce a simple reconciliation report for the first few days: number of orders, order amounts, stock movements and errors in the integration queue. It is not glamorous, but it gives you peace of mind.

The classic pitfalls

Customer data that does not match. Prices that come from several places. Stock that looks right until it does not. Or orders that stop without warning.

These are not problems that get solved with more meetings. They get solved with clear data owners, testing and an integration solution that can show you when something needs action.

And one more important thing: avoid letting both systems write to the same fields during the transition period. It is rarely a good idea to let NAV, Business Central and Magento compete over who is right.

The move is also a chance to do things better

When NAV becomes Business Central, you do not just have to copy the old way of working.

You can use the process to:

• Remove duplicated work
• Automate manual tasks
• Create a better overview of stock and orders
• Make it easier to handle more orders
• Give customers better information about prices and delivery
• Build a stronger foundation for growth

Do you have a Magento webshop and plans to go from NAV to Business Central? Read more about Magento and Business Central at Connectify or get in touch with us if you want an overview of the data flow, the pitfalls and the next steps.