The Best Business Central CRM is here

Dynamics 365 Business Central

For small businesses looking to take the next step in managing their operations, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central offers a scalable solution. It goes beyond bookkeeping software into basic enterprise resource planning (ERP), providing essential supply chain capabilities for growing companies. Though more full-blown ERP capabilities can be added on with partner addons, out of the box, it provides an accessible transition from basic accounting services to running your business effectively at every level. But it is not a CRM System.

Customer Management Features

Dynamics 365 Business Central has been a trusted source of finance solutions for companies worldwide over the last twenty years; however, its CRM capabilities have lagged far behind more modern providers. Companies struggling to use it may be comforted in knowing they’re not alone – even popular financial software such as QuickBooks and Xero haven’t successfully incorporated comprehensive CRM into their systems either.

With no signs indicating when Business Central will join the “Low-Code” revolution, users need to look outside its traditional offerings for quality customer relationship management functionality. Dynamics 365 Business Central’s capabilities in the Customer Relationships space have stagnated, hindered by Microsoft wanting you to invest in an additional solution – Dynamics 365 Sales for contact management and customer management. This Microsoft Dynamics CRM product comes packaged with a pre-made Dataverse integration that is designed to make it as convenient as possible, but it adds $65-$135 per user each month.

So we built it

We took the plunge and dove into discovering how our Simple-to-use RapidStart CRM customer engagement app, built on Dataverse, could integrate with Business Central. To our delight, Microsoft had already taken care of most of it! All we needed was two steps: First, to link up Business Central & Dataverse, then surface that connection in RapidStart CRM – both seamless processes resulting in a real CRM for Business Central.

With RapidStart CRM, you get the key capabilities of Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service without breaking your budget. We offer just enough customer engagement features for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t need a 20-pound bag of bells n’ whistles. Our 2 pounds are all most companies will ever require… saving time AND money!

Although they couldn’t be more different, Dynamics 365 Business Central and RapidStart CRM have made it possible to succeed together. With the help of Microsoft and Dataverse, a bridge has been established that allows both programs to work seamlessly – enabling users to capitalize on their unique abilities. Dynamics Business Central can now be integrated with RapidStart CRM in a few ways.

Synchronization keeps certain tables, like RapidStart CRM Contacts and Accounts to Business Central Customers, up-to-date between the two systems so any changes on one will show automatically in the other. Virtual Tables allow users to see data from Business Central within RapidStart that is not actually stored there – for example, Business Central Sales Quotes – without needing extra storage capacity or duplicating information unnecessarily!

By collaborating with the Business Central team in Copenhagen, we identified another unexplored area of potential: Case Management. As part of our RapidStart CRM solution we already have streamlined case processes and dashboards at hand – connecting these to additional context from Business Central would give users a more holistic experience that ties everything together!

To give the Sales and Service teams the insight they need to manage customer relationships, we’ve chosen to limit their access so that Accounts and Contacts can only be modified but not created. This way, Business Central won’t be overwhelmed by non-customers – ensuring it remains an efficient source of accurate data! Sales and Service teams can now easily access their customers’ financial data in RapidStart CRM, with new Contacts or Accounts created in Business Central automatically pushed into the system. By integrating Quotes, Orders, Invoices, and Business Central’s Inventory availability from Business Central right alongside other customer records within this platform, an Opportunity can be turned into a Quote which then is sent back out as a blank Sales quote linked directly to its Customer–allowing for a faster turnaround on important deals!

Want to quickly and easily link Dynamics 365 Business Central records with RapidStart CRM Cases? With a few extra steps, you can automate the process! Power Virtual Agent bots on your website or portal pages provide customers with options from lists of available BC data. Or offer case creation via email – simply include a field for them to type in their reference number. No matter which method works best for your business, linking Records and Cases has never been easier!

Business Central is a great tool for your finance team, but it falls short when it comes to Customer Relationship Management. Fortunately, RapidStart CRM can pick up the slack! This model-driven Power App has been created with low-code technology so that most adjustments won’t require professional coding work – and since it’s specifically designed toward sales and service teams’ needs, they’ll be more productive than ever before!

Why Read-Only?

With the implementation of CRUD operations, there are a few key considerations to be mindful of. To avoid any complications within Business Central records and minimize licensing costs, we have taken steps to ensure thorough security by designing a special RapidStart CRM Security role. This will require users who access this information with this particular role to possess an affordable Dynamics 365 Business Central Team Member license at $8 USD PUPM!

Advantages of integrating RapidStart CRM and Dynamics 365 Business Central

1. Improved data accuracy and consistency: Integrating RapidStart CRM and Dynamics 365 Business Central allows for the automatic sharing of data between the two systems, which helps to ensure that information is accurate and up-to-date across the organization. This can help to avoid errors and inconsistencies that can occur when data is manually entered or transferred between systems.
2. Enhanced efficiency: By eliminating the need to manually enter or transfer data between systems, integration can help to streamline business processes and increase efficiency. This can free up time for employees to focus on other tasks, such as customer service and sales.
3. Better decision-making: Integrating RapidStart CRM and Dynamics 365 Business Central provides a single, comprehensive view of customer and business data. This can help managers and decision-makers to make informed decisions based on real-time data, rather than relying on outdated or incomplete information.
4. Improved customer experience: Integrating RapidStart CRM and Dynamics 365 Business Central can also help to improve the customer experience by providing employees with access to a complete view of the customer’s interactions and history with the company. This can help employees to better understand and meet the needs of customers, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5. Increased profitability: By improving efficiency, decision-making, and the customer experience, integration of RapidStart CRM and Dynamics 365 Business Central can help businesses to increase their profitability by driving sales growth and reducing operating costs.
6. Enhanced collaboration: Integrating these two systems can facilitate collaboration between different departments and teams within an organization, as employees can access and share customer and business data in real-time. This can help to improve communication and coordination, leading to more effective and efficient operations.
7. Customization and integration with other applications: Both RapidStart CRM and Dynamics 365 Business Central are highly customizable and can be integrated with other applications to meet the specific needs of an organization. This can help to optimize business processes and improve the overall user experience.
8. Scalability: Integrating RapidStart CRM and Dynamics 365 Business Central allows businesses to scale their operations more easily, as the systems can grow and adapt with the organization. This can be particularly useful for businesses that are experiencing rapid growth or planning to expand into new markets.

What is low-code?

Low-code is a software development approach that allows users to build and deploy applications using graphical user interfaces and pre-built components, rather than writing code from scratch. Some of the advantages of low-code include:

1. Increased efficiency: Low-code platforms can help to streamline the software development process, as users do not need to spend as much time writing and debugging code. This can help to speed up the development process and reduce the time and cost required to build and deploy applications.
2. Improved accessibility: Low-code platforms can make it easier for non-technical users to develop applications, as they do not need to have programming skills. This can help to increase the pool of potential developers and make it easier for organizations to build custom applications to meet their specific needs.
3. Enhanced agility: Low-code platforms can also enable organizations to be more agile, as they can quickly and easily develop and deploy new applications to meet changing business needs. This can help businesses to be more responsive to market trends and customer demand.
4. Scalability: Low-code platforms can also be scalable, as they can easily accommodate the needs of organizations as they grow and evolve. This can be particularly useful for businesses that are experiencing rapid growth or planning to expand into new markets.

Written by AI

We are in the thinking stage about a RapidStart CRM addon that would incorporate GPT3 AI to do some things. As an experiment we asked AI to write this entire blog post. It did an “okay” job, definately not on par with our other posts.