Business Central Essentials vs Premium User Licenses

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for manufacturing is a leading-edge cloud ERP system well suited for manufacturing. The product has been split into two key versions: Business Central Premium and Business Central Essentials. Here we will try and explain the differences between the Business Central Premium and Essentials licenses.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials licenses are priced at $70 USD per user per month. However, they come with a few limitations, as they do not include Service Management or Manufacturing capabilities. Premium licenses, on the other hand, cost $100 USD per user per month and come with full capabilities.

Reference the table below for the list of features in Business Central Essentials vs Premium licenses.

NOTE: All users need Essentials OR Premium licenses. You cannot mix license types within the same Business Central environment.

Business Central Premium vs Essentials Comparison

Learn more about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central pricing.

If you enjoy this article and would like to talk to Sabre Limited’s president Rob Jolliffe to chat about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials vs Premium Licenses, you can book a one-on-one 30-minute call with him at https://calendly.com/robert-jolliffe/30min

Business Central Essentials Licenses

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials licenses cost $70 USD ($95 CAD) per full user per month and include about 85% of the core functionality of the product. You have the full accounting, warehousing, purchasing, sales, project accounting, human resources, and many other modules out of the box with Business Central essentials.

There is a lightweight CRM capability within the product (although many customers choose to add the Dynamics 365 Sales Professional addon for a more complete CRM capability).

Business Central Essentials licenses will give your users:

• Finance Management – General ledgers, dimensions, multiple currencies, budgets, account schedules, consolidation, intercompany postings, cash flow forecast, fixed assets, cost accounting, and more.
• Sales and Marketing – Contact management, campaign management, interaction and document management, email logging, opportunity management, and Dynamics 365 Sales integration.
• Fulfillment and Delivery – Sales invoicing, sales order management, sales line pricing and discounting, campaign pricing, sales invoice discounts, alternative shipping addresses, sales return order management, and bulk invoicing from Microsoft bookings.
• Purchasing and Payables – Purchase invoicing purchase order management, purchase return order management, alternative order addresses, purchase invoice discounts, purchase invoice discounts, alternative vendors, and vendor catalog items.
• Assembly Management – Allows creation of assembly BOM for light manufacturing and kitting activities.
• Inventory – Basic inventory, item categories, item attributes, item tracking, multiple locations, location transfers, shipping agents, item charges, item cross-references, item substitutions, item budgets, analysis reports, and cycle counting.
• Supply Planning and Availability – Assembly management, supply planning, demand forecasting, sales and inventory forecasting, order promising, calendars, drop shipments, and order planning.
• Project Management – Basic resources, capacity management, multiple costs, jobs, and time sheets.
• Warehouse Management – Bin, bin setup, inventory picks and put-aways, warehouse receipt, warehouse shipment, internal picks and put-aways, and warehouse management system.

Manufacturing with Essentials

When considering Business Central Essentials vs Premium versions for your manufacturing business you may think that it is 100% necessary to use the Premium version. That is not the case. It depends on a few factors and what is important for your company.

When Sabre conducts a Microsoft Business Central implementation, we look at these categories of requirements to find out which version (Business Central Essentials vs Premium) is right for the customer.

Business Central Essentials (Use Case)

Imagine a small custom furniture manufacturer that primarily assembles prefabricated components into finished products. They use Business Central Essentials to handle their financial operations, manage inventory, and track assembly orders.

With the Assembly Management module, they create simple Bills of Materials (BOMs) for kitting and light manufacturing. Their processes are straightforward, with minimal steps and no need for detailed job costing or machine-level scheduling.

Essentials provides all the tools they need to maintain efficient operations at a lower cost.

Business Central Premium Licenses

In addition to the features you get with Essentials licenses, the premium version of Business Central adds two core modules with a subscription of $100 USD ($135.70 CAD) per user per month:

• Service Management in Business Central
• Production Management in Business Central

Service Management in Business Central

The Service Management module allows a company to create and book “service orders” – which are usually conducted at the customer site and involve some kind of service activity and perhaps materials or parts. Service Management also allows the creation of service contracts for ongoing maintenance activities.

Businesses that sell and service products often need this module. For example, a company that sells industrial equipment might also have a service team that goes to the customer site to repair or maintain that equipment.

Our rule of thumb is that you need at least five (5) dedicated crews or “trucks” in your service team before looking at thus makes sense.

Production Management in Business Central

The Production Management module is designed to allow a complex multi-level structure of bills of materials (BOMs) and routings supporting scheduling and managing production of finished goods.

There are other ways to handle manufacturing that are not production manufacturing, and not every company needs the level of sophistication provided by this module. That said, the production management module adds a full suite of production manufacturing capabilities, which is also augmented by many AppSource add-ons.

If you are not sure how many user licenses you’ll need, I recorded a video on how to calculate Business Central user licenses that can help you.

Business Central Premium (Use Case)

A mid-sized industrial machinery manufacturer requires robust capabilities to manage complex production processes. They produce multi-step equipment with detailed routing and scheduling for each stage of manufacturing.

With Business Central Premium, they use the Manufacturing module to create advanced BOMs, monitor shop floor progress, and handle capacity planning. They also rely on subcontractors for certain processes, which is seamlessly managed within the Production Management features.

The Premium license enables them to scale their operations while maintaining precision and control.

Assembly vs Production Management in Business Central

One of the first decisions in a Microsoft Business Central implementation for a manufacturing environment comes down to whether you are going to use Assembly or Production Management. This is going to define whether you should have the Business Central Premium vs Essential level subscription.

There are a few cases where a company using Assembly might want Service also, but that is fairly rare. The Assembly module is a “lightweight” manufacturing module embedded in the essential level product. The Production Management module is much more robust (described above) and is in Premium.

4 Factors to Choose Between Assembly and Production in Business Central

When trying to determine Business Central Essentials vs Premium level requirements, you need to consider a few factors. These factors are among the most critical for a Microsoft Business Central implementation in manufacturing.

Here are 4 factors that we use to determine what level of manufacturing might work for a customer.

1. Job Costing Detail Required

If your manufacturing business needs very detailed job costing, such as “it took 33.5 minutes to set up our CNC lathe, and we produced 548 parts on the lathe in 7.22 hours of work with a 2.5% scrap rate” then you probably need Production Management.

On the other hand, if your business needs only rough job costing, such as “we used $275 of actual material, plus an estimated $150 of labor and made 22 parts – so $19.32 per part” you can likely use Assembly Management.

2. Multi Step Manufacturing

Most manufacturing is multi-step. You need to perform a few different operations in the fabrication or machining process, and each step takes a period of time after which production proceeds to the next step.

There are 2 ways to address this:

1. Create a new item between each step.
2. Use a routing, that tracks the status of each step (started, partially done (with Qty), done).

If your business would not need choice 2 – either because the production process is so simple that you don’t have any significant time between these routing steps or it doesn’t matter, or the process is done in one step alone – Assembly might be workable.

If your business creates an item between each manufacturing step, then Assembly is also a viable choice.

If you need routings and need to track the status at each step of manufacturing, then you need Production Management in Business Central. The decision about Business Central Essentials vs Premium is pretty easy to make if that is the case.

3. Scheduling

If you require machine level scheduling and loading for your facility – you almost certainly need Production Management in Business Central. The Assembly Management modules in Business Central do not have a robust scheduling capability. You can sequence and plan your assemblies and use that to dispatch work to your facility. You can have a due date for an assembly. The ability to schedule individual pieces of equipment or departments using Assemblies is very limited (almost non-existent).

A good rule of thumb is businesses that schedule their people rather than their machines should look at Projects and Assembly orders. These modules are more about managing available hours of labor and a capacity plan. Production might still be the right approach, but it is typically focused on machine or cell level scheduling, not people.

4. Outsourced Manufacturing

The last and most important factor in the Business Central Essentials vs Premium decision is whether your business does or wants outsourced manufacturing capabilities. This is much harder to do with Assemblies – and requires “ugly” workarounds to achieve. It is easy to handle outsourcing with Projects or Production Orders.
In general, if you are regularly sending the same materials out to contractors in batches to have work done on them, you are more likely to need Production Management in Business Central.

Manufacturing Walkthrough Video

Choosing Business Central Premium vs Essential licenses can be a bit complicated if you are a manufacturing company. This video outlines several of the points that we’ve discussed in this blog and gives a reasonably brief high-level overview of most of these concepts.

Additional FAQ

• Can I start with Essentials and upgrade later?
  Yes, businesses can begin with Essentials and transition to Premium if their needs evolve, though the transition may require additional planning and training.

• How does licensing affect scalability?
  Premium is better suited for businesses with aggressive growth plans, as it includes advanced tools to handle scaling complexities.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this document helps manufacturing companies that are looking at or considering a Microsoft Business Central implementation. Choosing between Business Central Premium vs Essential licenses is a fairly big decision and definitely impacts the costs of the project.

At Sabre, we usually recommend that smaller manufacturing companies making their first move to an ERP system (especially where they have limited staff time and resources) use Assembly Management to start. Although Assembly Production BOM has two different modules, upgrading from one to the other is not a massive exercise.

Migrating bills of materials from Assembly Management to Production Management in Business Central is a fairly easy process. It can be done easily by exporting the Assembly BOM details into Excel, making small changes, and re-importing the same into the Production BOM.

Sabre offers our Bronze manufacturing Microsoft Business Central implementation pricing in the $30,000-$35,000 range depending on the type of manufacturing. This usually involves using Assembly Management. Customers who need production management are typically about 50% more expensive to implement as the features and functions are much more complicated, and more deeply integrated into the system.

Need some help?

Have more questions about Business Central Premium vs Essential level pricing? You can visit the Microsoft Business Central Capabilities page for more information. Want some assistance with a Microsoft Business Central Implementation? Give us a call at: (519) 585-7524 or contact our team, we’re excited to talk with you soon!