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Microsoft Dynamics GP End of Life

Your Great Plains System Has an Expiry Date. Your Business Doesn't.

Microsoft ends Dynamics GP support and updates on 31 December 2029. Braintree’s GP specialist team migrates you to Business Central — protecting your data, your workflows, and your budget — without disrupting how you trade.
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  • Microsoft Solutions Partner
  • GP-native consultants
  • No disruption guaranteed

Time until GP support ends

Days
0
Hours
0
Mins
0
Secs
0

Until 31 December 2029 — GP product support & updates end

30%

BTC3 licence discount available now

16 mo

Forrester projected payback period

~30K

GP customers need to migrate globally

Dec '27

BTC3 discount window closes

30%

Bridge to the Cloud 3 (BTC3) — expires Dec 2027

Lock in your discount before the window closes. Dual-use rights included.

  • Microsoft Solutions Partner
  • 20+ Years Microsoft ERP Experience
  • 200+ Successful Migrations
  • South Africa’s #1 GP Migration Partner
  • SARS & IFRS Compliance Ready

The CFO’s Dilemma

The Real Problem Isn’t the 2029 Date — It’s What’s Happening Right Now

You already know GP is winding down. Microsoft confirmed it: product support ends 31 December 2029, security patches stop 30 April 2031.
But the deadline isn’t where your pain is. The pain is today. Every month your team builds spreadsheet workarounds instead of workflows. Every quarter, your reporting cycle stretches longer than it should. Your GP consultants are retiring. Your server costs don’t flex. And while you’re waiting, your competitors are closing books 30% faster on cloud ERP with AI.

70%

of GP users maintain 5 or more recurring spreadsheet reports outside the system — compensating for what GP can’t do natively.

— Crestwood Associates, 2026

To make the most of your first conversation

  • Month-end close gets disrupted during cutover
  • Historical data and familiar workflows disappear in the move
  • Running GP and Business Central concurrently doubles your costs
  • Choosing the wrong partner and ending up over-engineered and under-adopted
  • SARS compliance gaps opening up as GP stops receiving regulatory updates post-2029
  • Losing the ecosystem built around GP — legacy Management Reporter packs, Crystal Reports layouts, custom SQL reports, and the Excel bridges your team depends on
  • Watching the 30% BTC3 discount expire before you’ve started planning
101%

Forrester projects 101% ROI — with a 16-month payback for midmarket organisations on Dynamics 365 ERP.

The risk isn’t moving to Business Central. The risk is moving to the wrong version of it — built by someone who doesn’t understand how your GP system runs your business. And the compounding risk of staying put while your competitors modernise around you.

Sources: Forrester TEI Study, Feb 2026 • Gartner: 30% faster financial close by 2028 using AI-enabled cloud ERP • BDO 2025 CFO Outlook Survey

Our Difference

We Speak GP. We Build in Business Central.

Most migration partners know Business Central. Very few grew up inside Dynamics GP. Braintree’s migration team is built around consultants who spent years working in GP before moving into Business Central — people who understand your chart of accounts mapping, your dimension logic, your reporting workflows.

A migration built for confidence

We guide you through a structured, low-risk transition that moves at your pace — including dual running where continuity matters most. No “big bang” surprises. Just steady progress you can trust every step of the way.

A financially smart move

Through Microsoft’s Bridge to the Cloud 3 (BTC3) offer (Jan 2026 – Dec 2027), you secure a 30% licence discount for three years plus dual-use rights — meaning GP stays live while you settle into Business Central. No double-paying.

People who’ve walked in your GP shoes

Our consultants know the system from the inside. They understand GP Smartlists, FRx/Management Reporter, Extender, and how your modules are wired together — so no institutional knowledge gets lost in translation.

Technology shaped around you

We design Business Central around your people and your industry — manufacturing, distribution, retail. The result is a platform that fits naturally from day one and grows as you adopt AI, Copilot, and Power Platform over time.

Client Results

South African Companies That Made the Move with Braintree

Real migrations. Real outcomes. See how businesses like yours moved off GP and unlocked capabilities they didn’t think were possible.

Case Study

Controlgear Instramac

Engineering & Electrical Distribution · 33 employees · South Africa
CGI needed to move off their end-of-life GP system to a platform that supported an online sales channel, live customer updates, and streamlined API integrations. Braintree migrated them to Business Central — re-engineering processes, connecting a new e-commerce store, and unlocking real-time reporting that GP could never deliver.

"We started on Saturday and were trading by Monday. The Braintree team knew their stuff and the implementation was phenomenal.”

— Deon Nieuwoudt, Operations Director, Controlgear Instramac

Go-Live

Live in 1 weekend

Timeline

6-month project

New Capability

Online store + API integrations

Outcome

Custom dashboards & live data

Read Full Case Study

Case Study

Stevens & Co (Ryobi SA)

Power Tool Distribution · 175 staff · South Africa
Africa’s leading power tool distributor required a migration partner that understood their existing GP environment before writing a single line of configuration. Braintree’s deep GP familiarity meant the move to Business Central was smooth, fast, and built on existing knowledge — with warehouse efficiency improvements that exceeded all expectations.

“Business Central, designed with forward momentum in mind, is the future ERP system. Its fluid nature and ease of reporting and data management have been positive for our team.”

— Richard Stevens, CFO, Stevens & Co

Doc Management

25% improvement

Warehouse Efficiency

500–1,000% improvement

Reporting

Real-time with Power BI

Partner

Long-term Braintree relationship

Read Full Case Study

Our Migration Methodology

Six Steps. No Surprises.

Every Braintree migration follows a structured methodology refined over hundreds of GP-to-BC projects. You always know where you are, what’s next, and what it means for your team.

01

Six Steps. No Surprises.

Every Braintree migration follows a structured methodology refined over hundreds of GP-to-BC projects. You always know where you are, what’s next, and what it means for your team.

02

Solution Design & Blueprint

We map your chart of accounts, dimensions, approval workflows, and integrations into a Business Central blueprint tailored to your industry and how your finance team actually operates.

03

Licensing & BTC3 Planning

We structure your Business Central licensing (Essentials, Premium, Team Members) to optimise cost, lock in Microsoft’s Bridge to Cloud 3 promotional pricing, and ensure your dual-use rights are correctly activated.

04

Build & Data Migration

We configure Business Central, migrate your historical data, and build your integrations. This is where GP expertise matters most — we know exactly what transfers cleanly, what needs transformation, and what to leave behind.

05

Training & Change Support

Role-based training for every user type, parallel runs so your team builds real confidence before go-live, and a documented change management plan that reduces resistance and accelerates adoption.

06

Go-Live & Continuous Optimisation

Hypercare support in the critical weeks after launch. Then a roadmap for incremental improvements — Copilot integration, Power BI dashboards, Power Automate workflows, and AI-driven financial insights.

Side by Side

What Changes When You Move

A practical look at how your daily experience shifts when you move from Dynamics GP to Business Central — from reporting to IT overhead to compliance.
Area On Dynamics GP On Business Central
Interface Fixed desktop client, limited personalisation, screen-by-screen navigation Modern browser-based UI with role centres, saved views, quick-entry shortcuts, and mobile app
Reporting Manual exports, Management Reporter, external BI tools, 5+ compensating spreadsheets Built-in dimensions, one-click Power BI, role dashboards, Copilot data summarisation
Microsoft 365 Disconnected from Outlook, Excel, Teams — manual workarounds required Native integration with Outlook, Excel, Word, SharePoint, Teams, Power Platform, Copilot
AI & Automation No AI features. No Copilot. No Power Automate. No new capabilities after 2024 Copilot embedded throughout. Power Automate flows. Predictive inventory & cash flow AI
Compliance No regulatory updates post-2029. SARS VAT, IFRS, audit trails fall behind Continuous compliance updates, embedded audit trails, automated controls, SOD built in
IT Overhead On-prem servers, manual patching, SQL maintenance, backup management, DR testing Cloud-hosted on Azure. Microsoft manages infrastructure, security, backups. 99.9% uptime SLA
Updates Manual upgrades, scheduled downtime, costly consultancy for each version Automatic twice-yearly major releases (April & October) plus monthly improvements — zero downtime
Commercial Fixed server licences, maintenance fees, escalating consultant rates, ageing hardware capex Subscription per user, 30% BTC3 discount for eligible GP customers through Dec 2027

Financial Reporting Migration

What Happens to Management Reporter When You Move to Business Central?

Many GP clients rely on Management Reporter (MR) as the backbone of their financial reporting. Before you migrate, you need to know what replaces it — and how your reports survive the move.

What Is Management Reporter?

Management Reporter (MR) is Microsoft’s financial reporting tool that ships with Dynamics GP. It gives finance teams real-time access to detailed financial statements — P&L reports, balance sheets, cash flow statements, department-level drill-downs, and board-ready financial packs — all connected directly to the GP general ledger.
For most GP clients, MR is where the monthly board pack gets built, departmental performance is tracked, and audit-ready detail is generated. It’s deeply embedded in finance team workflows — and the first answer many customers get when they ask about a BC replacement is “no”. That’s no longer true.

Management Reporter is being phased out

As Dynamics GP reaches end-of-life in 2029, Management Reporter will receive no further updates, compliance changes, or support. Planning your reporting migration is just as important as migrating your transactional data.

The Solution: FYIsoft for Business Central & GP

Braintree partners with FYIsoft — a Microsoft Solutions Partner delivering sophisticated management reporting for Business Central and GP. FYIsoft is built as a direct Management Reporter replacement: easy to use, easy to buy, and purpose-built for the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem.

  • Converts your existing MR reports — minimal learning curve and no loss of institutional reporting knowledge during migration
  • Reduces reporting time by 50% or more — even in multi-entity and complex consolidation environments
  • Direct integration with Business Central and GP — no manual exports, no data imports, no spreadsheet bridges
  • Multi-entity consolidation — unlimited entities, users, and data volume, built for complex group reporting structures
  • Telli™ AI Financial Analyst — AI-powered insights and analysis built for finance teams using Microsoft Dynamics
Explore FYIsoft for Business Central
Ask Us About Reporting

ROI Estimator

What Could Your Migration Save You?

Adjust the sliders to see your estimated savings from Microsoft’s Bridge to the Cloud 3 discount, plus the Forrester-benchmarked return on investment for midmarket organisations moving to Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Forrester’s 2026 Total Economic Impact study projects a 101% ROI and 16-month payback period for midmarket organisations on Dynamics 365 ERP — equivalent to a $3.3M NPV over three years for a representative company.
Forrester TEI

$3.3M NPV over 3 years • 101% ROI • 16-month payback

Forrester Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Dynamics 365, Feb 2026

R 259,200 Est. 3-year BTC3 licence saving
R 540,000 Est. 3-year infrastructure saving
R 799,200 Estimated total 3-year saving
~16 mo Forrester projected payback
Get Your Personalised ROI Assessment

Estimates based on Microsoft BTC3 30% discount on Business Central Essentials (R2,400/user/month) and typical on-prem cost reduction. Actual savings will vary.

Hear It From Clients

What Our Clients Say About Moving Off GP

Don’t just take our word for it. Hear directly from CFOs and operations leaders who made the switch with Braintree.

“We started on Saturday and were trading by Monday”

Deon Nieuwoudt, Operations Director — Controlgear Instramac

Watch Video

Enhancing Stevens & Co's Business With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Stevens & Co (Ryobi SA) — Power Tool Distribution

Stevens & Company PTY (Ltd) was established in 1988, by the current Managing Director, Mr. John Stevens.

Read the full case study

Braintree Blog Post Artwork 1920 x 933 2 | Braintree

Braintree on YouTube

At Braintree, we equip businesses like yours for consistent success backed by tailored Microsoft solutions.

Visit Braintree Youtube

“The reporting improvement is night and day. We used to spend two days compiling the month-end pack. Now the board sees it in real time.”

— Finance Director, Manufacturing client

“Braintree were the only partner who walked us through the GP side first. They knew exactly how we’d been working and built Business Central to match.”

— CFO, Distribution company

"We were terrified of disruption. Braintree kept our team calm, the timeline honest, and we went live without missing a single customer order.”

— Operations Director, Retail group

Why Trust Braintree

South Africa’s Microsoft Business Central Specialists

Braintree is a Microsoft Solutions Partner with deep specialisation in Dynamics 365 Business Central. We’ve been implementing Microsoft ERP in South Africa for over two decades — across manufacturing, distribution, retail, and services.
Our GP-native consultants bridge the gap that most Business Central partners can’t — they understand your existing system before they touch your new one. That’s the difference between a migration that works and one that costs you twice.
microsoft img e1776066932738 | Braintree

Microsoft Solutions Partner

Business Applications

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Dynamics 365 Certified

Business Central Specialist

gp location e1776067092764 | Braintree

GP Migration Specialist

Great Plains to Business Central

sars card e1776067136256 | Braintree

SARS-Compliant Implementations

South Africa VAT & IFRS ready

Years implementing Microsoft ERP in South Africa
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Successful Business Central implementations
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Client satisfaction rate across all projects
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Industry verticals: Manufacturing, Retail & Distribution
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microsoft img e1776066932738 | Braintree

Microsoft Partner Network

Braintree is an authorised Microsoft Solutions Partner for Business Applications in South Africa — authorised to deliver, license, and support Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Free GP Migration Assessment

Tell Us About Your GP Environment

We’ll use your answers to prepare a relevant, personalised assessment — no generic pitch decks, no wasted time. One conversation. No commitment.
Step 2: Your Company Profile

Help us understand the scale and context of your business so we can tailor the assessment.

Step 3: Your GP Environment

Tell us about your current Dynamics GP setup so we can assess complexity and data migration scope.

Step 4: Your Priorities & Concerns

Help us understand what matters most — so our assessment focuses on what will actually move the needle for your business.


Step 4: Your Priorities & Concerns

Help us understand what matters most — so our assessment focuses on what will actually move the needle for your business.

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Real questions from CFOs, Finance Directors, and IT Managers evaluating a GP migration. If yours isn’t here, ask us directly.
Why is Microsoft ending support for Dynamics GP, and what does that practically mean for my business?

Microsoft is ending support for Dynamics GP to concentrate investment on cloud ERP, principally Dynamics 365 Business Central. GP will not be developed further. For your business, this means a fixed deadline. After GP’s end-of-support dates, Microsoft will stop issuing tax and regulatory updates, security patches and technical support. Your system will still run, but over time it will fall behind on compliance, become harder to secure, and grow more difficult to integrate with modern tools. The longer you stay on GP past those dates, the more those risks compound.

  • 1 April 2025: No new Dynamics GP perpetual licences for new customers.
  • 1 April 2026: No new Dynamics GP subscription licences for new customers.
  • 31 December 2029: Final product enhancements, tax and regulatory updates and mainstream technical support.
  • 30 April 2031: End of security updates and extended support.
From that point onward, you are effectively running a frozen, unsupported ERP at the heart of your finance and operations.
After support ends, GP will no longer receive new tax or regulatory updates, which can increase the risk of misaligned calculations, reporting errors and noncompliance over time. Once security patches stop, running GP and related SQL/Windows components on unpatched software makes it harder to satisfy internal policies, external auditors and data-protection requirements.
POPIA expects “reasonable technical and organisational measures” to protect personal information, which is easier to demonstrate on a supported, regularly patched platform than on end-of-life software.
Business Central runs as a Microsoft cloud service, which means it receives continuous security updates, maintains detailed audit logs, and includes built-in role-based access controls. Those are the kinds of platform-level controls that auditors look for. Staying on GP past its end-of-support dates makes those same assessments harder to pass, because unpatched software is increasingly difficult to defend under scrutiny.
For specific POPIA compliance guidance, consult your legal or compliance team. Braintree can advise on the technical and platform controls that Business Central provides.
You will not lose your history. Microsoft’s GP migration tool moves core master data, opening balances and historical transactional data into Business Central, including customers, vendors, items and general ledger information. Historical GP data typically lands in dedicated tables that you can still access for audit and reporting, without cluttering new transactions.
Many organisations also keep a read-only GP instance or export deeper history to a data warehouse or Azure Data Lake for long-term analysis and compliance. Braintree helps you decide which approach suits your data volume, retention requirements and budget.
Microsoft’s cloud migration tool supports GP 2015 and later. It migrates multiple companies’ setup, master data and transactional history into Business Central Online, covering core modules including general ledger, payables, receivables and inventory.
If you’re on an older version, you have two options:
  • Upgrade to GP 2015 first, then use the standard migration tool
  • Go straight to a full Business Central implementation, bypassing the migration tool entirely
Note that SQL Server 2016 or later is also required. Customers on older GP versions are often running older SQL infrastructure too, so it’s worth checking both together.
Braintree will assess your current GP and SQL versions early in the process and recommend the most practical path.
Yes, running both systems in parallel is standard practice and supported by Microsoft. It allows you to validate migrated data, stabilise new processes and reduce cutover risk before switching fully to Business Central.
In practice, most migrations run in parallel for six to twelve months. If your environment has multiple entities, heavy customisation, or extensive add-ons, it can run longer.
Microsoft’s Bridge to the Cloud 3 (BTC3) promotion makes this easier commercially. BTC3 is a time-limited offer running until December 2027 that provides a 30% discount on Business Central licences locked in for three years, plus dual-access rights that let you keep running GP without paying in full for both systems simultaneously. Braintree can assess your eligibility and structure the commercial arrangement to avoid double-paying during the transition.
If you only compare licence line items, Business Central can look like an added cost. But once you factor in ageing servers, storage, backups, datacentre costs, GP/SQL upgrades, third-party support and the risk of unsupported software, staying on GP is rarely cheaper over a 3–5 year horizon. Business Central’s subscription model shifts you to predictable operating expenditure, removes most infrastructure spend and includes updates and new features as part of the service. Microsoft’s Bridge to the Cloud 3 offer for eligible customers also provides significant licence discounts and dual-use rights, which Braintree can help you structure to avoid “double paying” during the transition.
For most finance and operations users, Business Central feels like an evolution rather than a completely new system. Core concepts such as the general ledger, customers, vendors, items, document posting and period-end processes carry over, even though the screens and workflows are modernised. Business Central’s browser-based interface, search, personalised views and Microsoft 365 integration are different from GP’s classic client, but many teams adapt quickly with role-based training and a period of dual running. Braintree’s GP-experienced consultants also help by explaining Business Central “in GP language” so users can connect new features back to what they already know.
The three areas that cause the most problems in GP migrations are customisations, integrations and data quality.
  • Customisations and add-ons built for GP often have no direct equivalent in Business Central. Some can be replaced by native BC functionality or AppSource solutions, others can’t. The risk is discovering this too late.
  • Integrations to payroll systems, CRMs, ecommerce platforms or industry-specific tools are frequently undocumented and complex. When they break post-migration, the impact is immediate.
  • Data quality is the most consistently underestimated risk. Years of accumulated inconsistencies don't migrate cleanly and can corrupt reporting and opening balances.
Braintree manages these risks through a structured pre-migration assessment that covers your GP environment, customisation inventory, integrations and data quality before any migration work begins. That early visibility drives the migration design, so the risks are planned for.
A partner that knows Business Central but not GP will understand the destination, but not necessarily where you’re starting from. Braintree’s team includes consultants who have implemented and supported GP for years before moving into Business Central, so they understand GP’s modules, table structures, quirks and best-practice configurations. That GP-native knowledge reduces guesswork when mapping charts of accounts, segments, dimensions, posting setups, and historical data into Business Central, and helps us spot edge cases and risks much earlier. The result is fewer surprises, less rework and a migration that preserves what works in GP while deliberately improving what doesn’t.
You don’t need a full-time internal project army, but you do need engaged champions in finance, IT and, where relevant, operations. Finance usually leads decisions on chart of accounts, dimensions, reporting, approvals and cutover timing; IT typically leads on integrations, security, identity and any on-prem infrastructure dependencies. Braintree handles the heavy technical lifting, including the GP-specific mapping and configuration decisions that typically consume the most internal time. Your subject-matter experts are essential for confirming designs, validating migrated data, testing critical processes and supporting change management.
You can do both, but a pure like-for-like move often leaves a lot of value on the table. Many organisations take the opportunity to simplify charts of accounts, move to dimension-driven reporting, replace manual workarounds and retire legacy add-ons when they move to Business Central. The safest pattern is usually a phased approach: first ensure core processes and reporting work at least as well as they did in GP, then layer on improvements such as new analytics, automation, integrations and additional modules. Braintree’s methodology is built around that principle: protect business-critical processes first, then help you unlock the extra value that Business Central makes possible.
Here are two South African businesses that made the move with Braintree, with very different starting points.
  • Stevens & Co (Ryobi) a power tool distributor with 175 staff and operations across five countries, migrated after their CFO calculated that upgrading GP would cost 80–85% of a full system switch. Post-migration: 25% improvement in document management and a 500–1000% improvement in warehouse efficiency. [Read the case study →]
  • Controlgear Instramac a mining and industrial wholesaler with decades of paper-based processes and heavy customisations, completed six months of preparation with Braintree and then migrated over a single weekend.
If you’d like to discuss your own GP environment and what a migration could look like, get in touch with Braintree.
Official Microsoft Migration Resources
GP Data Migration to BC Online
End-to-End Migration Overview
Prepare & Plan Your Migration
GP Lifecycle Policy