For years, Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) did the job. It tracked your inventory, managed your ledger, and kept the back office stable. But the system is showing its age, and Microsoft has put a firm sunset date on it.

If you are managing an internal finance team, you are likely already hitting walls with its rigid reporting and lack of modern cloud flexibility. You are probably stuck exporting ledger data into messy spreadsheets just to get a clear picture of your cash position. Moving to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the obvious next step to modernize your setup, but an ERP upgrade alone won't solve your forecasting headaches. Pairing Business Central with Dryrun gives your finance department absolute control over both day-to-day cash tracking and long-term strategic planning.

Why is Microsoft Dynamics GP sunsetting?

Microsoft is phasing out Dynamics GP to focus entirely on its cloud-native platform, Business Central. This means teams currently using on-premise GP must plan a migration strategy to ensure they continue receiving security updates, modern compliance tracking, and native cloud integrations.

Cloud-Native Flexibility Without the Server Maintenance

Managing GP required a lot of heavy lifting—physical servers, manual upgrades, and constant IT oversight. Moving to Business Central shifts that operational burden entirely to the cloud.

With a cloud-native setup, your internal team takes advantage of automatic updates, meaning you are always running on the most current version without scheduled downtime. It gives you secure access to your financial data from anywhere, making collaboration across departments much smoother. More importantly, it allows your systems to scale naturally as you add new entities or expand operations, making the day-to-day work faster while cutting out server maintenance costs.

Expanding Your Operational Capabilities

Business Central handles the core financial fundamentals beautifully. It delivers comprehensive tracking for accounts payable, accounts receivable, budgeting, and supply chain management. Because it is part of the Microsoft ecosystem, it connects directly with tools like Power BI and Teams.

But while Business Central is excellent at managing historical transactions and organizing your ledger, it still leaves a critical gap when you need to look forward and model future uncertainty.

Can you forecast cash flow directly inside Business Central?

While Business Central excels at tracking historical accounting data and basic ledger budgets, it lacks the granular, transaction-level control required for ad-hoc cash flow scenario modeling. Connecting Business Central with Dryrun automates baseline data synchronization while retaining full manual overrides to simulate future cash positions accurately.

Where Standard ERPs and Generic Forecasting Tools Fall Short

This predictability gap is where generic cloud forecasting tools fail too. Software like Float, Fathom, or Jirav rely on rigid, historical datasets to generate generalized, monthly projections. They completely miss the daily or weekly timing issues that actually disrupt operations.

If your business deals with lumpy revenue collections, unpredictable vendor payment terms, or complex currency shifts across multi-entity operations, a broad monthly average won’t save you. You need a tool built for the friction of real-world cash management.

Dryrun bridges this gap by delivering the clean visual clarity your executive team needs alongside the exact mathematical control your finance team demands.

• Dual-Timeline Modeling: You can jump seamlessly from a hyper-granular weekly operational view to see exactly when you need to move money between bank accounts and entities, all the way out to long-range monthly and quarterly strategic forecasts.
• Transaction-Level AR & AP Tracking: Instead of guessing based on broad "Days Sales Outstanding" averages, you can track and adjust cash flow timing down to individual invoices and bills.
• Multi-Entity and Multi-Currency Roll-ups: If you manage multiple corporate entities or handle complex foreign currency needs, Dryrun provides native consolidation and automated currency conversion without a single broken spreadsheet formula.
• Customized Automation with Manual Control: You get automated data syncing for your baseline numbers, but your team retains the manual control to add, edit, or delete entries to model any "what-if" situation.

Clear Data Syncing Without the Spreadsheet Risks

The biggest drain on a controller’s time is exporting ledger data into Excel, building complex forecasting formulas, and then realizing a single version-control issue or broken link threw off the entire projection.

Business Central and Dryrun work together to eliminate that manual grind. Dryrun pulls your live accounting data automatically to establish a flawless, real-time baseline. From there, your finance team can safely model multiple parallel scenarios—like a major client delaying a payment, an unexpected budget constraint, or a sudden expansion plan—without altering your actual accounting records.

Better Boardroom Communication and Faster Decisions

When you sit down with business owners or executive leadership, they do not want to squint at a dense grid of spreadsheet cells. They need to understand cash constraints and opportunities immediately.

Dryrun uses a deliberate visual hierarchy and color coding to make complex financial realities easily scannable for non-financial managers. Because you can compare multiple scenarios on a single visual timeline, you can answer tough strategic questions live during meetings instead of forcing your team to go back and rebuild a spreadsheet model.

Protecting Your Time and Your Long-Term Capital

Migrating from Dynamics GP to Business Central and integrating Dryrun requires an initial investment of time and setup energy. But the return on that investment is massive.

You eliminate the risks of server downtime, eradicate manual data entry errors, and stop burning hours fixing temporary spreadsheets. Your internal finance team can finally step away from manual data assembly and focus their energy on deep analysis and strategic growth.

How hard is it to connect Business Central to Dryrun?

Connecting the platforms is a straightforward process that utilizes direct API integrations to sync your accounts payable, accounts receivable, and general ledger data automatically. Once connected, your historical data populates immediately, allowing you to start building live cash flow scenarios without manual entry.

Schedule a discovery meeting with our team or start a free trial today to see how Dryrun can transform your forecasting process.

Dryrun: Clear Cash Flow. Complete Control.

Cash flow forecasting software that delivers crystal-clear forecasts through an unmatched blend of automation and control.

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