Upgrading from NAV can feel like a giant leap. But sticking with it is often what’s holding your Shopify operations back. Manual reconciliations, slow performance, outdated customizations: these issues creep in as your systems age. They also create real risk
when orders, inventory, and customer data don’t move as fast as your storefront demands.

Moving to Business Central isn’t just an upgrade. It’s a chance to reset, simplify, and align your ERP with how Shopify actually works today.

Your Early Decisions Shape the Entire Project

Choose Your Platform: Online or On-Prem

Online supports multi-warehouse, global, and high-scale commerce with less overhead.
On-prem remains useful only when strict latency or data residency rules apply.

Define the Scope: Upgrade or Rebuild

Don’t drag every NAV customization forward. Keep what protects margin or compliance.
Retire the rest. This is your moment to clean house.

Step-by-Step: How to Upgrade Without the Chaos

Step 1: Bridge to Business Central 14

This stage is temporary. It brings your NAV database into a version that can speak the same language as BC. Use it to catalog which customizations still touch base tables.

Step 2: Convert Customizations to Extensions

Refactor old C/AL code into clean AL extensions. This is essential for future upgrades
and Business Central Online. Replace what you can with standard features.

Step 3: Move to the Latest Release

Upgrade to the current BC version and adopt newer capabilities where they fit. Some
workflows may change. Prepare to test and tune.

Step 4: Migrate to Business Central Online

Use Microsoft’s tooling to move production data, validate balances, and lock down
number series. Create a rollback snapshot just in case.

How to Connect Business Central and Shopify the Right Way

Native Connector

Use it when your store setup is standard, straightforward pricing, simple SKUs, and
limited complexity.

iPaaS (Middleware)

Choose this when you need visibility across Shopify, WMS, 3PL, payments, and CRM.
Middleware offers visual flow control, retries, and dashboards.

Custom APIs

Go this route if you run bundles, multi-brand stores, or require specific B2B flows.
Custom lets you shape the logic exactly as needed and scale it on your terms.

Lock These Data Mappings to Prevent Errors

• Products and Variants: Keep SKUs unique. Pick a single product master.
• Inventory and Locations: Map Shopify locations to BC location codes. Include
  reservations in availability logic.
• Customers and Pricing: Match customers to BC records and pricing groups.
• Orders and Payments: Align orders and payment events to correct ledger
  entries.
• Fulfillments and Returns: Push tracking back to Shopify. Post refunds to the
  original tender.

Avoid These Common Pitfalls

• Two pricing authorities that fight each other
• Mismatched tax rounding
• No dead-letter queue for failed messages
• Synchronous API calls that slow everything down

Build for Performance and Resilience

Integration should be reliable from day one. Make sure your order posting is idempotent. Set up retry logic with exponential backoff. Use correlation IDs for tracing. Most importantly, track what matters: order lag, API limits, queue depth, and payout variances.

How All Your Ducks Supports the Full Journey

We bring structure to what can feel like a risky move. Our approach includes:

• Deciding the system of record for product, price, tax, and inventory
• Building the upgrade path from NAV to BC 14, then to current
• Refactoring customizations and retiring legacy code
• Creating a test plan, cutover playbook, and rollback snapshot
• Designing your Shopify integration with reliability in mind from day one

Once you go live, dashboards, alerts, and reconciliation jobs keep your ducks lined up—day in, day out.

This isn’t just a technical upgrade. It’s a shift in how you run your business. Done well, Business Central and Shopify become one system. Your team stops babysitting the ERP and starts scaling with confidence.

If you're ready to stop duct-taping NAV and start scaling with Business Central, book your integration diagnostic with All Your Ducks today.