The urgent need to modernize Business Central development

Dinosaur AI and Business Central

We are at an inflection point

I am just back from Directions EMEA 2025 where I have spoken with a number of people who show the way forward.

Maybe the inflection point was there before, but AI has definitely made it more obvious.

Artificial Intelligence is the asteroid hurtling down and hitting our ecosystem.

Business Central is fundamentally different from NAV

It is an error not to make enough sense of urgency.

This is not just about upgrading from NAV to BC. Business Central development is fundamentally different from NAV development, and this difference is accelerating.

The upgrade cycle has changed forever

In NAV, you could upgrade every five or ten years. You had time. You could write code that worked, even if it didn’t follow best practices. The upgrade cycle was slow enough that technical debt could accumulate without immediate consequences.

Business Central changes the rules completely:

  • Monthly updates: Your code is updated every month, whether you like it or not
  • Breaking changes: With two major releases per year, breaking changes arrive on a regular basis

The problem isn’t new—it’s just more urgent

The truth is, NAV had programming guidelines. Microsoft provided them. But many developers created their own patterns, and it worked because upgrades were rare.

That approach is much harder to sustain now.

When you’re facing monthly updates and breaking changes, code that doesn’t follow modern practices becomes a challenge. It can break, cost more to fix, and frustrate customers. And it may put you at a competitive disadvantage.

The customer perspective

Customers are often unaware of the technical debt hidden in their codebase. They don’t know to ask for:

  • Code that follows Microsoft’s guidelines
  • Test coverage
  • Modern architecture patterns
  • Regular code reviews

They trust that “senior developers with a lot of experience” are delivering quality code. But experience without modern practices can sometimes lead to legacy code.

The AI acceleration

The world is moving fast. AI tools are making it possible to build better solutions faster. Competitors who adopt modern practices and leverage AI will outcompete those who don’t.

If you’re still writing code the NAV way, you may find yourself falling further behind every month.

What modern Business Central development looks like

Modern BC development requires:

  • Investment in training: Understanding BC’s architecture, not just porting NAV code
  • Test-driven development: Writing tests that run in milliseconds (see my articles on Environment Interfaces and Temporary Tables in Tests)
  • Code review: Peer review of all changes
  • Modern tools: CodeCop, linters, proper settings.json configuration
  • Clean architecture: Namespaces, interfaces, proper organization (see my Clean Code Initiative)
  • Engineering management: Teams that understand modern software development

The cost of delay

We’ll upgrade to BC during the next two years.

But in two years, everything will have moved so far from where we are now. This year alone has seen rapid changes. Waiting two years means you’ll be even further behind, with even more technical debt to address.

The time to act is now.

How to identify legacy code patterns

After three years as a freelance BC developer, I’ve seen patterns that suggest code may not be ready for BC’s update cycle:

  • Objects organized by Object Type instead of functionality
  • Global variables everywhere
  • No test apps
  • Minimal or missing settings.json configuration
  • No CodeCop or other linters
  • No use of interfaces or namespaces
  • Inconsistent naming conventions
  • No automatic code cleanup
  • No peer code review process

If this describes your codebase, it might be time to prepare for BC’s monthly update cycle.

The path forward

I have changed my job title to Modern Business Central Developer.

Prefer to rewrite code using modern patterns rather than patching old code.

If you have adopted a modern development mindset, then show it by changing your job title to Modern Business Central Developer.

And, please, by all means share this article with your network and ask your network to join the movement.

We need to outcompete legacy practices

The best way to make legacy practices obsolete is to outcompete them.

By using the latest technologies and a modern mindset, we will build better solutions faster.

Solutions that are:

  • Easy to maintain
  • Prepared for evolution
  • Easy to extend
  • Easy to support
  • Ready for BC’s update cycle

Reach out if you need help with the transition.

Finn Pedersen

Modern BC Developer

PS: I realize that some people might be offended by this post. That was not the intention. The purpose of this post is not to offend anyone, but to create enough sense of urgency. The technical reality is that BC’s update cycle requires modern practices. The longer we delay, the more expensive and difficult the transition becomes. I want to help, not criticize.