Dynamics NAV 2018 end of support (January 2028): a NAV-to-ERPNext migration plan for 10 to 150 user manufacturers
Short answer
Microsoft’s lifecycle page for Dynamics NAV 2018 shows an extended support end date of January 12, 2028 (displayed as 1/12/2028, Pacific Time; mainstream support ended in January 2023; checked Nov 13, 2026). That gives a NAV 2018 manufacturer a little over a year to plan, which is enough for a proper migration if you start now. Microsoft’s route is Business Central. Its supported path from NAV 2018 (version 11) runs through Business Central version 14 and version 25 to the current release, and Microsoft says it requires converting your application from C/AL to AL, so customisations are rebuilt either way. Business Central lists Essentials $80 / £61.50, Premium $110 / £84.60 and Team Members $8 / £6.20 per user per month, paid yearly (UK excludes VAT), and manufacturing needs Premium. ERPNext has no licence fee (GPL-3.0). Most NAV manufacturing objects have a clear ERPNext home: items and variants, production BOMs and routings, production orders and dimensions. The parts that need design work are posting groups, flushing methods, production order statuses and dimension rules. This guide maps them object by object.
Contents
- Who this guide is for
- The NAV 2018 dates, exactly as Microsoft lists them
- Business Central or ERPNext: the short version
- Object by object: NAV 2018 to ERPNext
- Customisations, add-ons and integrations
- How the migration runs
- A NAV 2018 to ERPNext plan that finishes before January 2028
- Questions to ask both partners
- Best for, and wrong choice when
- Frequently asked questions
Who this guide is for
This guide is for finance directors, operations managers and IT leads at manufacturers with roughly 10 to 150 NAV users who still run Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2018. You make things: discrete assemblies, batch products, or a mix with some subcontracting. You use NAV’s manufacturing module, not just finance.
If you have already read our NAV 2017 end-of-support guide, this one goes further on the practical side. NAV 2018 sites have more time, so the useful question is less “which product” and more “what exactly moves where, and in what order”. We set out the Business Central option fairly, then map NAV’s manufacturing objects to ERPNext one by one.
It is part of our series on legacy ERP deadlines; the legacy ERP end-of-support hub lists every vendor date we have confirmed. If you also run Dynamics GP somewhere in the group, see our Dynamics GP to ERPNext guide.
Sources: Microsoft Lifecycle: Dynamics NAV 2018 and Microsoft’s supported upgrade paths to Business Central for dates and the upgrade route; the Business Central pricing page (US) and Business Central pricing page (UK) for Business Central prices; the Frappe Cloud pricing page and ERPNext repository on GitHub for ERPNext; ERPNext’s ERPNext Bill of Materials documentation, ERPNext Routing documentation, ERPNext Workstation documentation, ERPNext Work Order documentation, ERPNext Job Card documentation, ERPNext Production Plan documentation, ERPNext accounting dimensions documentation, ERPNext Data Import documentation and ERPNext opening balance documentation. All checked on Nov 13, 2026.
What we do not do here
We do not estimate implementation or upgrade fees for either option. They depend on how many objects you have customised, your add-ons, your data and your partner. Any number we gave without seeing your system would be invented.
The NAV 2018 dates, exactly as Microsoft lists them
| Product | Policy | Start date | Mainstream end date | Extended end date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dynamics NAV 2018 | Fixed Lifecycle Policy | 12/1/2017 | 1/11/2023 | 1/12/2028 |
Microsoft shows these dates in Pacific Time, exactly as above. After the extended end date, the Fixed Lifecycle Policy means no more security updates or paid support for NAV 2018. For context, NAV 2017’s extended support ends on January 12, 2027 and NAV 2016’s ended in April 2026, both from Microsoft’s lifecycle pages and listed in our hub.
- NAV 2018 keeps running after January 2028; Microsoft’s patching and support stop.
- Your Windows Server and SQL Server versions have their own lifecycles. Check them, because they may force the move earlier.
- About 14 months is enough for a well-run ERPNext migration for most 10 to 150 user manufacturers, if discovery starts in the next few months. It is not enough if you leave it until late 2027.
Business Central or ERPNext: the short version
Microsoft’s upgrade paths page routes NAV 2018 (version 11) through Business Central Spring 2019 (version 14) and Business Central 2024 release wave 2 (version 25) to the current release, and states that this path requires converting your application from C/AL to AL. Customisations in base objects therefore get rebuilt as extensions. That is the same structural fact we described for NAV 2017.
| Factor | Business Central | ERPNext |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Upgraded in place through intermediate versions | Migrated: extract, transform, load |
| C/AL customisations | Rebuilt as AL extensions | Replaced by standard features, configuration or a custom Frappe app |
| Partner and ISV continuity | High: same model, many add-ons have AL versions | New partner; add-ons need ERPNext equivalents |
| Manufacturing licence | Premium per user | No licence fee |
| Hosting | Microsoft cloud (online) or on-premises | Frappe Cloud or self-hosted |
Business Central prices
From Microsoft’s official US and UK pricing pages, checked Nov 13, 2026:
| Business Central licence | US (USD) | UK (GBP, excl. VAT) | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $80.00 per user / month, paid yearly | £61.50 per user / month, paid yearly | Finance, sales and operations |
| Premium | $110.00 per user / month, paid yearly | £84.60 per user / month, paid yearly | Essentials plus service management and manufacturing |
| Team Members | $8.00 per user / month, paid yearly | £6.20 per user / month, paid yearly | Read data, approve workflows, create or update select information |
A manufacturer using production orders needs Premium for its manufacturing users. A year of Premium licences at list price, assuming every user needs a full licence (the worst case):
| Full users | Premium, per year (USD / GBP) | ERPNext licence |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | $13,200 / £10,152 | $0 / £0 |
| 25 | $33,000 / £25,380 | $0 / £0 |
| 50 | $66,000 / £50,760 | $0 / £0 |
| 150 | $198,000 / £152,280 | $0 / £0 |
Frappe Cloud publishes USD prices: site plans from $5 a month (about £3.76) and servers from $40 a month (about £30.12), checked on Nov 13, 2026. The GBP figures are indicative conversions, not Frappe prices.
Indicative GBP conversions use the Bank of England daily spot rate (series XUDLUSS) of US$1.3282 per £1 for 11 Nov 2026, the latest published figure when we checked on Nov 13, 2026. They are not official UK prices: the vendor does not publish a GBP list price for these items, and your invoice currency, rate and VAT treatment may differ.
ERPNext is not free to run: hosting, implementation, support and upgrades all cost money, and Business Central buyers pay for implementation and support too. The licence line is what differs, and it scales with users.
Object by object: NAV 2018 to ERPNext
This is the core of the guide. For each NAV object a manufacturer uses, here is where it goes in ERPNext and what needs a decision. We use NAV’s standard object names.
Items
| NAV 2018 object | ERPNext | Decision you need to make |
|---|---|---|
| Item | Item | Which fields you still use; item numbering; item groups replacing item categories |
| Item Variant | Item Variants (template item with attributes) | Whether variants become attributes on a template, or separate items |
| Item Unit of Measure | UOM and UOM Conversion on the item | Base unit per item; check every conversion factor |
| Stockkeeping Unit (per location or variant) | Item Defaults per company, reorder levels per warehouse | Where you set reorder points and default suppliers |
| Location and Bin | Warehouse (nested tree) | Whether NAV bins become child warehouses; how pickers work |
| Item Tracking Code, lot and serial numbers | Batch and Serial No, set on the item | Which items are batch or serial tracked; migrate only live batches |
| Inventory Posting Group, Gen. Product Posting Group | Item Group defaults and Item Defaults (income, expense, stock accounts) | Redesign posting as account defaults; this is the biggest conceptual change |
Production BOMs and routings
| NAV 2018 object | ERPNext | Decision you need to make |
|---|---|---|
| Production BOM Header and Lines | Bill of Materials for the item | One BOM per manufactured item; mark one as default |
| Production BOM Version | Additional BOMs on the same item; one marked default | Load only the current certified version, archive the rest |
| BOM lines of type Production BOM (nested BOM) | Sub-assembly items with their own BOMs (multi-level BOM) | Whether a nested BOM is a real stocked sub-assembly or a phantom to explode |
| Routing Header and Lines | Routing, or operations on the BOM | Whether to keep routings separate or embed operations in the BOM |
| Work Center and Machine Center | Workstation | Map machine centres to workstations; carry hour rates |
| Scrap % on BOM lines | Scrap percentage on BOM items | Check that scrap does not get counted twice |
Production orders
| NAV 2018 object | ERPNext | Decision you need to make |
|---|---|---|
| Simulated and Planned production orders | Production Plan | How planners will work: from sales orders, material requests or forecasts |
| Firm Planned and Released production orders | Work Order | Migrate open released orders or finish them in NAV before cutover |
| Prod. Order Components | Required items on the Work Order | Check component quantities and source warehouses |
| Prod. Order Routing Lines, output and capacity journals | Job Cards per operation, with time logs | How operators record time and output on the shop floor |
| Flushing method (manual, forward, backward) | Material transfer for manufacture; backflush from the work-in-progress warehouse; skip material transfer options | Agree one consumption method per product type |
| Finished production orders | Completed Work Orders (history) | Do not migrate history; keep NAV read-only for it |
| Subcontracting work centres | Subcontracting orders and receipts | Test how materials are supplied to subcontractors |
Two points from ERPNext’s documentation are worth knowing in advance. The work order can skip the material transfer to the work-in-progress warehouse, and it can backflush raw materials from the work-in-progress warehouse when you book the finished goods. Between those settings you can usually reproduce NAV’s manual, forward and backward flushing behaviour, but test each product type in the pilot.
Dimensions
| NAV 2018 object | ERPNext | Decision you need to make |
|---|---|---|
| Global Dimension 1 and 2 | Cost Center plus one Accounting Dimension, or two Accounting Dimensions | Which dimension becomes the cost centre tree |
| Shortcut Dimensions 3 to 8 | Accounting Dimensions | Keep only dimensions someone reports on |
| Dimension Values | Records in each dimension’s doctype (cost centres, departments, custom) | Clean up blocked and duplicate values |
| Default Dimensions on customers, vendors, items, G/L accounts | Defaults on the master or per-company dimension defaults | Where defaults come from on each transaction |
| Value Posting rules (Code Mandatory, Same Code, No Code) | Mandatory for Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet postings, per dimension and company | Test mandatory rules with real invoices and journals before switching them on |
| Dimension Set Entries on posted ledgers | Dimension fields on GL entries for migrated opening balances | Migrate balances by dimension only where reports need it |
ERPNext’s accounting dimensions documentation notes that mandatory settings affect whether transactions can be submitted, and recommends testing them on representative invoices, payments and journals before enabling them for daily users. That matches our experience: get the dimension design right in discovery, not during data loading.
Finance and trading
| NAV 2018 object | ERPNext | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| G/L Account (chart of accounts) | Chart of Accounts | Rebuild the tree; keep account numbers if finance wants them |
| Customer, Vendor, Contact | Customer, Supplier, Contact, Address | De-duplicate first |
| Gen. Business Posting Group, Customer and Vendor Posting Groups | Customer and Supplier Group defaults, party accounts | Part of the posting redesign |
| VAT Posting Setup | Item Tax and Sales / Purchase Tax templates | Test every VAT scenario you use |
| Open sales and purchase documents | Sales Orders, Delivery Notes, Sales Invoices; Purchase Orders, Receipts, Purchase Invoices | Migrate open documents only |
| Customer and vendor ledger entries (open) | Opening invoices | Load open items at cutover |
| Fixed Asset | Asset with depreciation schedule | Net book value and remaining life |
Customisations, add-ons and integrations
Most NAV 2018 manufacturing sites have customised the base objects, often in the production or warehouse areas. Before choosing a path, list every modified object and every third-party add-on, and classify each: still needed, needed but now standard, or obsolete. It is the best input to both quotes.
| Item | Business Central path | ERPNext path |
|---|---|---|
| Modified tables, pages and codeunits | Rebuilt as AL extensions | Standard feature, configuration or a custom Frappe app |
| Custom reports and documents | Rebuilt as AL reports | Print formats, report builder, query or script reports |
| EDI, web shop, banking, shop-floor terminals | Re-pointed to Business Central APIs | Rebuilt against the Frappe Framework REST API documentation |
| ISV add-ons (e.g. advanced planning, quality, warehouse) | Need an AL version from the ISV | Need an ERPNext feature, marketplace app or custom build |
A useful rule: if a customisation exists because NAV 2018 lacked a feature, check whether ERPNext has it as standard before you scope a rebuild. Quality inspections, job cards and production planning from sales orders are examples where that is often the case.
How the migration runs
There is no Microsoft or Frappe-published NAV-to-ERPNext tool that we know of. The migration is designed and scripted:
- Extract from the NAV SQL Server database, or through NAV configuration packages for masters.
- Transform to ERPNext’s structures: posting groups to account defaults, dimensions to cost centres and accounting dimensions, BOM versions to default BOMs.
- Load masters with ERPNext’s Data Import, which accepts CSV and Excel templates and can insert or update records.
- Open balances against a temporary opening account, as the ERPNext opening balance documentation describes; open receivables and payables as opening invoices; stock through stock reconciliation, by warehouse and batch.
- Open production: either finish released production orders in NAV before cutover, or load them as work orders with the material already issued.
Our usual load order for a manufacturer: chart of accounts and dimensions, units of measure, item groups, items and variants, warehouses, customers and suppliers, workstations, routings, BOMs bottom-up (sub-assemblies first), then opening stock, open orders and balances. Loading BOMs bottom-up matters, because a parent BOM cannot reference a sub-assembly BOM that does not exist yet.
History policy: migrate masters, open documents, opening balances and monthly G/L balances for two or three prior years. Keep NAV running read-only and isolated, or extract history to a reporting database, for as long as your record-keeping rules require.
A NAV 2018 to ERPNext plan that finishes before January 2028
| Phase | When | Work | Done when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory and discovery | Dec 2026 to Feb 2027 | Object and add-on inventory, process maps for planning and shop floor, dimension and posting design, compliance requirements | Signed scope; both quotes requested on the same inventory |
| Pilot | Mar to May 2027 | Load one product family: items, BOMs, routings, workstations; run a production cycle and a month-end close | Production and finance sign off the pilot month |
| Build | Jun to Sep 2027 | Configuration, the customisations you kept, integrations, reports, training | User acceptance testing signed off |
| Dress rehearsals | Oct to Nov 2027 | Two full trial migrations from a NAV copy, with reconciliation of stock, WIP, AR, AP and G/L | Balances and stock values match NAV |
| Cutover | Period start before Jan 12, 2028 | Close the period in NAV, load openings, go live | First month and first VAT period closed in ERPNext |
These are our planning ranges for a 10 to 150 user NAV manufacturer, not a promise. Several companies, heavy warehouse customisation or a large add-on estate push them out. If your financial year starts on January 1, aim to cut over at that point and keep December 2027 for rehearsals.
Questions to ask both partners
Ask your Business Central and ERPNext partners
- Show us, object by object, which customisations you rebuild, which become standard and which you recommend dropping.
- How will you reproduce our flushing methods, production order statuses and capacity planning?
- How will dimensions and their posting rules work on day one?
- Which add-ons have a supported equivalent on your platform, and who maintains it?
- How many trial migrations are included, and what counts as a pass?
- How will you test our VAT returns and any e-invoicing requirements before go-live?
- Who supports us after go-live, during which hours, and at what annual cost?
Best for, and wrong choice when
ERPNext is the right NAV 2018 replacement when
You are a 10 to 150 user manufacturer, NAV is customised enough that a rebuild is coming either way, your manufacturing is discrete or batch with standard routings, and you will fund a pilot and two dress rehearsals before January 2028.
ERPNext is the wrong choice when
Your critical add-ons have Business Central versions and no ERPNext equivalent, your users depend on native Microsoft 365 and Power BI integration, or you cannot release planners and finance staff for the pilot.
Business Central is the wrong choice when
Premium licences for every manufacturing user will be your largest recurring ERP cost, and the C/AL to AL rebuild means you would not keep much of NAV anyway.
Frequently asked questions
When does Dynamics NAV 2018 support end?
Microsoft’s lifecycle page for Dynamics NAV 2018 shows an extended end date of 1/12/2028 (Pacific Time) under the Fixed Lifecycle Policy, so support ends in January 2028. Mainstream support ended in January 2023 (checked Nov 13, 2026).
Can NAV 2018 upgrade directly to Business Central?
Not directly to the current release. Microsoft routes NAV 2018 (version 11) through Business Central version 14 and version 25, and states that the path requires converting the application from C/AL to AL.
How do NAV production BOMs map to ERPNext?
Each NAV production BOM becomes an ERPNext Bill of Materials on the manufactured item, with one BOM marked default. Nested production BOMs become sub-assembly items with their own BOMs, loaded bottom-up.
What happens to NAV production orders?
Planned orders map to ERPNext Production Plans, firm planned and released orders to Work Orders, and routing lines to Job Cards. Finish open released orders in NAV before cutover where you can.
How do NAV dimensions map to ERPNext?
Map one global dimension to the cost centre tree and the others to accounting dimensions, then set defaults and mandatory rules per company. Test mandatory rules on real documents before enabling them.
How much does Business Central Premium cost?
Microsoft lists Business Central Premium at $110 per user per month in the US and £84.60 per user per month in the UK (excluding VAT), paid yearly (checked Nov 13, 2026).
Is there a NAV to ERPNext migration tool?
Not one published by Microsoft or Frappe that we know of. Extract from the NAV database or configuration packages, transform, and load with ERPNext Data Import.