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The Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make in Their First Year on Dynamics 365 Business Central (After Go-Live)
Going live on Dynamics 365 Business Central is a milestone.
The system is live. Transactions are posting. The business keeps moving.
And then reality sets in.
A few months after go-live, many teams start to feel a quiet disconnect between what they expected Business Central to deliver and what they’re actually experiencing day to day. Reporting feels harder than it should. Excel hasn’t gone away. Month-end still feels stressful.
This isn’t because Business Central doesn’t work. It’s because the first year after go-live is where usage habits are formed, and those habits matter more than configuration ever will.
Let’s walk through the top 10 mistakes companies make in their first year after go-live, using real Business Central examples you’ll likely recognise.
1. Leaving default setups in place because “nothing is broken”
Business Central is designed to be usable out of the box. That’s a strength—but it can also create complacency.
After go-live, many companies never revisit:
- Posting groups
- Account structures
- Approval thresholds
- Number series logic
Everything technically works, so it feels safe to leave it alone.
The problem shows up later. For example, revenue and cost accounts become too aggregated, approvals don’t reflect real authority levels, or posting logic no longer matches how the business actually operates.
Microsoft’s design assumes setups will evolve as the business stabilises post–go-live. Defaults are a starting point, not a final state.
2. Overusing general journals instead of business documents
This is one of the most common Year-1 habits—and one of the most damaging long term.
In Business Central, journals are meant to support exceptions and adjustments. But after go-live, some teams begin using general journals for:
- Revenue corrections
- Cost reallocations
- Inventory adjustments
- Accruals that should be recurring
Why? Because journals feel fast and flexible.
Over time, this erodes one of Business Central’s biggest strengths: traceability. Documents tell a story. Journals often don’t.
When auditors, finance leaders, or new team members ask why a number exists, the answer becomes harder to explain. The system isn’t wrong—it’s just being used in a way it wasn’t designed for.
3. Treating dimensions as optional rather than foundational
Microsoft places heavy emphasis on dimensions because they are the backbone of meaningful reporting in Business Central.
Yet in the first year after go-live, many companies:
- Make dimensions optional to “keep things simple”
- Apply them inconsistently
- Avoid enforcing them on key G/L accounts
Some companies choose only one global dimension early on because it feels easier. Later, leadership asks for profit and loss by department and by project. At that point, the system can only surface one dimension easily across standard reports, because Business Central supports two global dimensions that are deeply embedded into reporting and filters.
The data technically exists—but not in a way that’s easy to analyse without rework.
This isn’t a system flaw. It’s exactly how Microsoft designed dimensions to work. Year 1 is when dimension discipline either becomes part of the culture—or becomes a permanent pain point.
4. Letting inventory drift away from reality
Inventory is where Business Central either becomes a trusted operational system—or quietly loses credibility.
After go-live, common patterns include:
- Posting inventory adjustments to “fix” quantities
- Using locations or bins inconsistently
- Ignoring item tracking because it slows things down
The system is accurately recording transactions—but the transactions don’t always reflect what’s actually happening on the warehouse floor.
Once operations stop trusting inventory quantities, they stop relying on Business Central. Once finance stops trusting inventory valuation, they start overriding it.
That trust breakdown usually begins in the first year after go-live.
5. Allowing Excel to remain the real reporting tool
Exporting data is normal. Rebuilding the business in Excel is not.
In Year 1, many teams:
- Export trial balances to build P&Ls manually
- Maintain separate sales or margin spreadsheets
- Reconcile Business Central numbers against Excel “just to be sure”
Over time, Excel becomes the trusted source, and Business Central becomes a data feeder.
This isn’t about reporting capability. Business Central can report well. The real issue is confidence in data quality and consistency, which is driven by how the system is used—not by the reports themselves.
6. Not tightening permissions as roles stabilise
Immediately after go-live, permissions are often broad. That’s understandable—everyone’s still learning.
The problem is when those permissions never get refined.
In post–go-live environments, it’s common to see:
- Too many users posting directly to the G/L
- Approval limits that don’t reflect authority
- No separation between entry and posting
Business Central provides strong role-based security, but Microsoft expects permissions to mature after go-live, once responsibilities are clearer.
If access remains wide open in Year 1, control issues tend to surface later—usually at the worst possible time.
7. Making configuration changes without understanding downstream impact
Business Central is tightly integrated. Small changes ripple.
Typical Year-1 scenarios:
- Posting groups are changed to fix a single issue
- Dimension values are renamed without considering history
- Number series are modified midstream
Each change solves an immediate problem. Later, reporting doesn’t tie out, or historical comparisons stop making sense.
The system isn’t fragile—it’s consistent. It does exactly what it’s told. The issue is change without impact awareness, which is especially risky in the first year after go-live.
8. Training users on “how” but not on “why”
Most users know which buttons to click. Fewer know why the process exists.
For example:
- Why dimensions are mandatory
- Why certain accounts can’t be posted to directly
- Why approvals apply even to small amounts
Without context, users see rules as obstacles. They work around them instead of with them.
Microsoft designs Business Central around structured processes. Year 1 is when those processes either gain buy-in—or quietly get bypassed.
9. Treating post–go-live support as purely reactive
After go-live, partner engagement often drops to:
- Fixing errors
- Answering “how do I” questions
- Supporting upgrades
What’s missing is proactive review.
The most successful Business Central customers regularly ask:
- Are we using the system as intended?
- Where are users struggling?
- Which manual steps still exist—and why?
Year 1 is when small corrections have the biggest payoff. Waiting until things break usually means more effort later.
10. Expecting the system to create value without behavioural change
This is the hardest truth to accept.
Business Central doesn’t create discipline. It reflects it.
If data entry is inconsistent, reports will be unreliable.
If approvals are bypassed, controls will weaken.
If ownership is unclear, adoption will stall.
The companies that succeed after go-live aren’t the ones with the most customisations. They’re the ones that commit to consistent behaviour, even when it feels slower at first.
That commitment is forged—or lost—in Year 1.
A more useful question to end on
Instead of asking, “Is Business Central working?”, try this:
“Are we using Business Central the way Microsoft designed it—or the way that feels easiest under pressure?”
The answer usually explains everything.
Want a grounded second opinion?
If you’re live on Business Central and parts of this felt uncomfortably familiar, that’s normal. It doesn’t mean the system failed—it means you’re at the point where optimisation matters.
If you’d like a practical, real-world review of how you’re actually using Business Central—not a sales pitch—reach out to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Sometimes a few focused changes in Year 1 make all the difference for the next five.
