NAV to Business Central
The budget is approved. The timeline is set. Your team is ready to move from Dynamics NAV to Business Central. And then, six weeks in, someone pulls up the object list and the room goes quiet. Nobody realized how much was in there — or how deeply it had been modified. That moment is where migrations go wrong. A C/AL code assessment before the project starts is how you avoid it.
Most organizations that have run Dynamics NAV for five or more years have lost track of their own customizations. The original implementation team is long gone. The code has been patched, extended, and modified by three or four different consultants over the years. Add-ons from Lanham, ChargeLogic, or other vendors have been customized on top of their own customizations.
What looks like a standard NAV installation from the outside is often a dense, layered system where nobody has a current, accurate picture of what the custom code actually does, how it's structured, or what it will take to move it into AL extensions for Business Central.
Going into a migration without that picture is how projects end up doubling in cost and timeline. Not because anyone made a mistake — but because the scope was never properly established at the start.
A proper NAV assessment is not a walkthrough of the system or a series of stakeholder interviews. It is a structured analysis of the actual code and data — every modified object, every custom table, every integration touchpoint.
The output answers four questions your migration partner needs before they can give you a credible scope and price:
Until those questions have documented answers, any migration estimate is a guess.
I conducted a full technical assessment of a Dynamics NAV 2018 implementation for a Fortune 500 electronic components distributor, as part of an engagement through Enavate. The purpose was to produce a clear technical picture of what a Business Central migration would actually involve before any scoping or pricing began.
The system had been heavily customized over many years. What the assessment found, categorized by object type and origin:
Lanham EDI customizations: 12 tables · 7 pages · 24 reports · 52 codeunits
ChargeLogic customizations: 12 tables · 16 pages · 2 reports · 16 codeunits
Modified standard NAV objects: 188 tables · 216 pages · 37 reports · 156 codeunits · 5 queries
Pure custom objects (50000+ range): 167 tables · 291 pages · 99 reports · 107 codeunits · 9 queries · 40 xmlports
The integrations were equally complex: Oracle Unity (the accounting system of record), SAP Hybris (e-commerce), Verical.com (a second storefront), Tradesphere (export compliance), Gambit (warehouse management), and Kettle (ETL platform moving data between all of them). NAV was not just an ERP — it was the integration hub for an entire digital commerce operation.
The infrastructure behind it: a 2TB production database running on a three-node SQL Server replication cluster with 112GB of RAM, plus a 5TB archive database, three NAV service instances behind a load balancer, and an RDS environment for user access.
None of that complexity was visible from a high-level conversation about the system. It only emerged from systematically going through every layer of the codebase and infrastructure.
The value of an assessment is not the inventory itself. It is the conclusions that flow from it.
In the Arrow assessment, the conclusions were specific and actionable: the C/AL code intermingled with add-on code needed to be untangled before any AL extension work began. Integrations currently handled inside NAV job queues needed to be moved outside — to Azure Functions, Logic Apps, or a proper ETL layer — because those patterns do not belong inside Business Central. The database size and replication setup had direct implications for the cloud migration approach and data cleanup requirements before cutover.
A migration plan built on those findings is a different document than a plan built on assumptions. The scope is more accurate. The risks are named and ranked. The architecture decisions — cloud vs. on-premise, which add-ons to carry forward versus replace, which integrations to rebuild versus retire — are grounded in evidence rather than optimism.
The Custom Code Assessment for Migration service is a focused engagement, typically lasting two to four weeks depending on the complexity of the environment. It covers a systematic review of all modified and custom objects, categorized by origin and complexity; a map of external integrations and their technical mechanisms; an infrastructure review with migration implications; and a written report with findings, risks ranked by severity, and recommended AL extension architecture for the target Business Central environment.
The deliverable is a document your migration partner can use to scope the project with accuracy — and that you can use to pressure-test any estimate you receive. If a partner quotes a migration without having seen something like this first, that is a flag worth taking seriously.
Rates for experienced Business Central freelancers in the US typically range from $150 to $250 per hour depending on specialization. For defined-scope work like a code assessment or health check, fixed-price engagements are a better fit — you know the cost upfront and there are no billing surprises. SureHoofERP offers fixed-price assessments for exactly this reason.
Look for a consultant with direct NAV and AL experience — not a generalist Microsoft partner who sub-contracts the work. A Microsoft MVP with a defined engagement model (fixed price, clear deliverable) is typically more cost-effective than a large partner firm for assessment and planning work. The free discovery call at SureHoofERP is a good starting point to understand scope and cost before committing.
A C/AL code assessment is a systematic review of every custom and modified object in your Dynamics NAV or GP environment. It tells you exactly what needs to be rewritten in AL, what can be replaced by standard Business Central functionality, and what can be retired. Without it, any migration scope or budget is a guess. Most projects that run significantly over budget skipped this step.
A focused C/AL code assessment typically takes two to four weeks, depending on the number of custom objects and integrations in the environment. The result is a written Migration Readiness Report — not a verbal summary — that your migration team can use immediately for scoping and planning.
Yes. SureHoofERP is based in California and serves clients nationwide remotely. NAV assessments, AL development, performance reviews, and migration planning are all delivered remotely. A free discovery call is the first step to discuss your environment and what an engagement would look like.
If you are running Dynamics NAV and have a BC migration on the horizon — or if you have been given a migration estimate that feels like a guess — a C/AL code assessment is the right first step. Book a free discovery call and we will talk through what an assessment would cover in your environment, what it typically uncovers, and how it changes the conversation with your migration team.
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