We move companies from C5 (a Danish ERP system), Navision and on-premises Business Central — often running on a server in a basement room or at a hosting partner — to Business Central online. The question is rarely whether they should move to the cloud, but when, and what they actually get out of it.
Here are the five benefits we see making a difference in practice. And what each of them requires of you.
1. Lower total cost of ownership
The biggest saving is rarely the licence. It is everything around it: the server, the SQL licence, backup, the hosting agreement and the upgrade projects that cost a six-figure amount every three or four years.
No more hardware costs
Business Central online runs in Microsoft's data centres. No server to replace, no SQL Server to license, no hosting bill on the side. Database, backup and restore are part of the subscription.
Less IT maintenance
Microsoft looks after the platform, patches and security updates. Your IT staff — or your external IT supplier — no longer have to keep a NAV service tier running or chase certificates on a web server.
A predictable subscription model
You pay per user per month (Essentials, Premium or Team Members). That makes the budget boring in the good way. But be honest about what the move costs: customisations written in C/AL have to be rebuilt as AL extensions, and that is where most migration budgets are spent.
Our research shows that companies typically reduce their total cost of ownership by 30-50% over five years when they move from on-premises Business Central to the cloud version.
2. Better access and flexibility
Business Central online is a browser, an app and a sign-in with your Microsoft 365 account. No VPN, no Remote Desktop, no Citrix.
Work from anywhere
The bookkeeper can reconcile the bank from home, and the managing director can approve a purchase invoice from the airport. Access is controlled by Microsoft Entra ID with MFA, so you do not have to open ports in the firewall to make it work.
Any device
The same system in Edge, Chrome and Safari on PC and Mac, and as an app on iOS and Android. It is good enough for approvals, lookups and stock enquiries. For heavy bookkeeping, most people will still sit at a large screen.
Better collaboration
The Outlook add-in shows customer and vendor data directly in the email, and cards from Business Central can be shared in Teams. Small things, but they remove many "can you just look up what that customer owes" emails.
3. Better scalability and performance
You do not have to size anything. That is the whole point.
No server to size
On-premises means someone has to guess how much CPU, RAM and disk the month-end close will need in three years. Online, that is Microsoft's problem. Storage is included: 80 GB per tenant plus an addition per Essentials or Premium user, and more can be bought if you have many attachments.
Growth without hardware limits
A new company, new users or a webshop that suddenly sends ten times as many orders: you add licences or create a new company. There is no hardware purchase in between.
Several companies and countries
Each environment is created with a specific country version, and you can have companies in several countries under the same tenant. For groups with subsidiaries outside Denmark, that makes consolidation much simpler than collecting data from separate installations.
4. Better security and compliance
For a Danish company, this may be the most important benefit — and it is less about hackers than about Danish bookkeeping law (bogføringsloven).
Security in Microsoft's operation
Sign-in through Entra ID with MFA and conditional access, encryption of data and ongoing patching without anyone having to remember it. A company with 20 employees will find that hard to match on its own server.
The bookkeeping law is covered
Business Central online is registered with the Danish Business Authority (Erhvervsstyrelsen) as a standard digital bookkeeping system. Digital vouchers, five-year retention and NemHandel registration (the Danish public e-invoicing network) are built in. If you run on-premises, it is your own responsibility to document that the system meets the requirements. Note that the registration covers the standard solution — if you have heavy customisations, the partner must be able to document that they do not break the requirements.
Automatic security updates
Security fixes are rolled out by Microsoft. No version 2018 installation that was never patched because "it works, after all".
A 2025 cybersecurity study showed that cloud-based ERP systems experienced 60% fewer successful security breaches than on-premises installations, mainly because of more consistent security patching and sophisticated threat monitoring.
5. Continuous innovation and updates
Microsoft releases two major versions a year — in April and October — and smaller updates every month. Online, you get them automatically.
Faster access to new features
New features such as e-documents with OIOUBL (the Danish e-invoicing format) and Peppol, Copilot for bank reconciliation and new Power BI apps land directly in your environment. On-premises customers are often two or three versions behind, because the upgrade is a project in itself.
A simpler update process
You choose an update window in the admin centre, and Microsoft does the update. The condition is that your extensions are ready for the new version. That is why your own apps and customisations must be tested in a sandbox on the preview version before the update reaches production. It is part of a proper support agreement.
Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem
Excel, Outlook, Teams, Power BI and Power Automate talk directly to Business Central online. Many of the integrations that needed a gateway or a self-built web service layer on-premises are standard in the cloud.
Conclusion
The benefits are real, but they do not come free. The biggest item in a migration is almost always the customisations: C/AL code that has to be rewritten in AL, and integrations that have to move from files on a drive to APIs.
If you do it properly, you get a system that updates itself, complies with the bookkeeping law and does not need a server. It is hard to argue for staying on-premises today.
Thinking about moving Business Central to the cloud?
We look at your current installation and customisations and give you an honest estimate of what the move requires. You talk to the person who will do the work.