The ERP Solution for the Year” 2025 in Agtech Breakthrough Awards 2025
The ERP Solution for the Year” 2025 in Agtech Breakthrough Awards 2025
Great Plains ran American agribusiness for decades — and Microsoft has now published its sunset: support and tax updates end December 31, 2029. Microsoft's designated destination is Dynamics 365 Business Central. AgriERP is agriculture built on that exact platform — so one migration takes you from a sunsetting general-purpose ERP to a supported, cloud, agriculture-specific one.
Great Plains earned its place in agriculture. Born in Fargo, North Dakota, it became the mid-market accounting system of American business — and its US payroll, distribution modules, and Management Reporter carried co-ops, packers, processors, and ag retailers for a generation. Choosing GP was the right call when you made it.
But Microsoft has written the ending. New licenses can no longer be purchased. Product development has stopped. On December 31, 2029, regulatory and tax updates end — the payroll tax tables GP shops depend on simply stop updating — and on April 30, 2031, security patches end too. Meanwhile, everything agricultural in your GP was bolted on: custom Dexterity code in a 1990s language fewer developers know each year, or ISV add-ons whose vendors are moving their products elsewhere.
Microsoft's designated destination for GP customers is Dynamics 365 Business Central, with built-in GP-to-BC migration tooling. We'll be straight with you: GP and Business Central are different lineages, so this is a re-platform, not a version upgrade — which makes your destination the decision that matters. Land on generic software and you'll rebuild agriculture all over again. Land on AgriERP, and agriculture is already there.
These are Microsoft's official milestones. Two have already passed. The one that matters most to payroll users is December 31, 2029 — the last tax and regulatory update GP will ever receive.
On GP 2015, 2016, or 2018? Those versions face their own earlier support cliffs under Microsoft's Fixed Lifecycle Policy — your real deadline may already be here.
GP is a genuinely mature ERP — its US financials and payroll earned their reputation. The gaps aren't in what GP was. They're in what a feature-frozen, on-premise product can never become.
Capability |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|
Platform Status |
Feature-frozen; support ends Dec 31, 2029; security patches end Apr 30, 2031 |
Actively developed with continuous Microsoft cloud updates |
US Financials |
Strong, mature GL, multi-company, fixed assets |
Full Business Central financials plus agricultural cost structures |
US Payroll |
Native — but tax tables stop updating after 2029 |
Ag-grade payroll via BC partner: piece-rate, seasonal crews, H-2A |
Chart of Accounts |
Segmented account strings — one natural account becomes dozens of GL codes |
Natural accounts plus dimensions — cleaner books, flexible reporting |
Posting |
Batch-era posting |
Real-time posting |
Distribution & Inventory |
Solid SOP/POP; basic lot and expiry tracking |
Ag inventory: harvest lots, weights, cold storage, field locations |
Deployment |
On-premise; SQL Server upkeep; RDP/Citrix/VPN access |
Cloud SaaS on Azure with mobile field access |
Reporting & BI |
Management Reporter and SmartLists; no native Power BI |
Native Power BI dashboards and Microsoft Copilot |
Customization |
Dexterity — a proprietary 1990s language with a shrinking talent pool |
Modern AL extensions that survive every update |
Farm & Crop Management |
Not native — custom code or bolt-on add-ons only |
Built-in crop, field, block, season, and harvest management |
Grower Accounting |
Not native — requires separate ag add-on products |
Grower settlements, contracts, and grower portal built in |
Food-Safety Traceability |
Basic lot data; FSMA-grade reporting needs add-ons or custom SQL |
Lot genealogy and FSMA-ready traceability with rapid recall reporting |
GP capabilities vary by version, modules, and add-ons. We assess your specific environment during discovery.
The same assistant, applied to four places a fast answer helps: the field, the inputs, the back office, and the season ahead.
When Microsoft announced GP's retirement, it named the destination: Dynamics 365 Business Central, with a built-in cloud migration tool to carry your data there. Since any move off GP is a re-platform — Dexterity code doesn't come along — the real question isn't whether to move. It's where you land.
One migration. From a sunsetting general-purpose ERP to a supported, cloud, agriculture-specific one.
GP never knew what a field, a grower, or a harvest was. Every agricultural capability your system has today came from somewhere else — custom Dexterity code, a grain add-on, spreadsheets around the edges. Those bolt-ons are aging with the platform under them.
Keep the capability. Retire the patchwork that delivers it.
GP's US payroll is its signature strength, and it faces the hardest deadline of all: after December 31, 2029, the tax tables, W-2 formats, and 1099 updates stop. Running payroll on frozen tax tables isn't a risk — it's a certainty of non-compliance. And we'll tell you plainly: Business Central has no native US payroll.
Planned now, on your calendar — not in a scramble against the 2029 year-end.
GP posts in batches, lives on a server you maintain, and reaches the field through RDP sessions — an architecture from an era when the office was the only place work happened. Adding an entity means cloning dozens of segmented GL accounts. Insight means exporting SmartLists to Excel.
No servers to patch, no batches to post, no month-old answers.
Enhancement fees keep coming due on a product that will never gain a feature. Servers and SQL licenses age. Dexterity developers get scarcer and pricier every year. After 2029, auditors will ask why payroll runs on frozen tax tables; after 2031, cyber insurers will ask why core systems run unpatched. Third-party support can extend GP's life — but it cannot issue Microsoft tax updates or security patches.
The clock is published. The question is whether you move on your schedule or its.
API-first on Business Central, AgriERP connects with the machinery, weather, commerce, and logistics tools that eConnect and Integration Manager couldn't reach.
Can’t find your desired integration? Just let us know, and we’ll build one for you!
Keep your farms and facilities audit-ready with automated documentation, real-time logs, and built-in controls for FDA, USDA, and FSMA compliance — including the lot-level traceability reporting the 2028 federal deadline and today's retail buyer mandates demand.
Keep your farms and facilities audit-ready with automated documentation, real-time logs, and built-in controls for FDA, USDA, and FSMA compliance — including the traceability reporting modern food-safety rules demand.
Your GP system holds decades of history, customizations, and add-ons. We migrate it as a guided, phased process — mapped module by module, reconciled to the penny, and cut over around your seasonal and payroll calendar.
Solution Discovery We inventory your GP version, modules, Dexterity customizations, ISV add-ons, and integrations — then decide, item by item, what Business Central and AgriERP cover natively, what rebuilds as extensions, and what retires.
Project Planning We design your chart of accounts the modern way — natural accounts plus dimensions instead of segment sprawl — and build an implementation plan around your business cycles and payroll year-end.
ERP Implementation We configure AgriERP on Business Central, stand up your ag payroll partner solution, and rebuild integrations API-first to replace eConnect and Integration Manager.
Data Migration from GP Using Microsoft's GP-to-BC tooling plus our own process, we migrate masters, open transactions, inventory with lot data, checkbooks, and 1099s — with a defined window of GL history brought across and the rest archived and accessible.
Go Live & Onboarding After comprehensive UAT — trial balance, AR/AP aging, and inventory valuation reconciled to GP — we go live and train your team, with parallel-run support during the transition.
Ongoing Support Our dedicated support team assists you around the clock under our SLA agreement — and from here, updates arrive automatically instead of as upgrade projects.
Microsoft stopped selling new GP perpetual licenses after April 1, 2025 and new subscription licenses after April 1, 2026. Product enhancements, regulatory and tax updates, and technical support end December 31, 2029 — the final year-end update. Security patches end April 30, 2031.
No — and we won't pretend otherwise. GP and Business Central come from different product lineages, so this is a re-platform, not a version upgrade. But Business Central is Microsoft's officially designated destination for GP customers, with built-in migration tooling — and AgriERP adds agriculture on top of that exact platform.
Microsoft's tooling moves your chart of accounts (segments become dimensions), customer and vendor masters with open receivables and payables, inventory items including lot and serial data, checkbooks, open purchase orders, and 1099 information — with options to bring GL history across for reporting. The final scope is confirmed during discovery.
Dexterity code doesn't port to Business Central. Each customization is evaluated: many are already covered by standard Business Central or AgriERP agriculture modules, some are replaced by AppSource apps, and the rest are rebuilt as modern AL extensions that survive every update.
GP's tax-table updates stop after December 31, 2029, and Business Central has no native US payroll. AgriERP moves you to an agriculture-grade payroll approach — piece-rate, seasonal crews, and H-2A workflows — through a Business Central payroll partner, planned well before the cliff.
Tool-based core financial migrations can run two to three months; typical implementations take three to nine months, and complex multi-entity environments longer. The consultant pool shrinks as 2029 approaches — starting on your seasonal calendar beats racing the deadline.
