Background: Competitors to Dynamics 365 Business Central, such as Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters, and Intuit, offer products that enable accounting practitioners to provide bookkeeping and accounting services efficiently for multiple clients at a reasonable cost. Microsoft has traditionally relied on technical partners, some of whom are accountants, to sell and implement their business accounting products. This approach can be challenging, as IT partners may lack the practical experience of an accountant.

Current Challenge: The ideal setup for an accounting customer in Dynamics 365 Business Central is within their own production environment. This setup facilitates easy transfer of the environment to other tenants without significant challenges, data manipulation, or time-intensive tasks. However, the cost of maintaining separate production environments for each customer is approximately $2,800 per year per customer, which can be prohibitive for small businesses. If an accountant has 50 small business customers to whom they are providing accounting and bookkeeping services, this will mean an additional technology spend (often passed through to the client) of $140,000 in total. This is beneficial for Microsoft but challenging for accountants and their clients, as they struggle to compete with solutions offered by Microsoft’s competitors. Additionally, this cost is on top of the licensing fees for clients to access the production environment and use CRM, production, warehouse, and other features in Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Proposed Solution and Pricing: Microsoft should consider developing a specialized accounting license for Dynamics 365 Business Central. This license would allow bookkeepers and accountants to set up an unlimited number of production environments under their tenant, enabling easy transfer if a client decides to leave or needs to take over management of their environment and licensing. Key features of this license should include:

• Unlimited Production Environments: Allow accountants to create multiple production environments without additional costs.
• Easy Transfer: Facilitate seamless transfer of production environments and user licenses between the accountant and the client.
• Guest User Licensing: Enable the transfer of guest user licenses from the accountant's system to the client's tenant, ensuring continuity and ease of management.

The cost for this specialized accounting license should range between $2,500 (preferred pricing) to $5,000 annually, aligning with competitor pricing for unlimited utilization by accountants of their accounting solutions. This special Microsoft licensing would only be available to bookkeeping and accounting firms, requiring proof of their business model either via a professional license or other documentation. Not all bookkeepers and accountants are professionally licensed like CPAs and enrolled agents, so while a license would be a good proof, it should not be the only required option.

Benefits:

• Cost Efficiency: Reduces the financial burden on small businesses and accountants.
• Flexibility: Provides a scalable solution that can grow with the accountant's practice.
• Ease of Transfer: Simplifies the process of moving production environments between clients and accountants.

Hopefully, Microsoft will consider implementing this in Dynamics 365 Business Central as soon as possible to allow for bookkeeping and accounting professionals to utilize a lower cost licensing process to help expand and better utilize Dynamics 365 Business Central.