Is your process manufacturing company still running on Microsoft Great Plains (“GP”) or system(s) attached to it? Well, as you may have heard through the plastic grapevine, GP’s end-of-life-support date in 2028 has been announced, which means running a manufacturing company on GP after 2025 will be like jumping out of a plane without a parachute!
Of course, GP was GREAT (pun intended) back in the day, but new development on the platform ceased years ago. During that time, Microsoft has been focused on developing robust features and adding tools for other platforms in their ERP suite — both of which are built for the future!
As we’ve posted previously, GP is currently on what Microsoft refers to as “Extended Support”, which is tech-speak for “running on life support.” This means there will be zero new features, and only a few basic security updates between now and when GP support shuts down permanently.
Enter Microsoft Business Central, the robust, cloud-powered ERP platform, which can rescue your plastics or other process manufacturing business from outdated technology.
Business Central (“BC”) is a fast, intuitive, cloud-based, future-ready platform, built to optimize your process manufacturing operations in addition to robust, world-class industry-specific functionality from Yaveon.
Let’s take a look at how Microsoft BC & Yaveon could potentially manage, optimize, and grow your plastics or other process manufacturing company!
1 — Finance That Flows: BC gives you real-time financial tracking, automated invoicing, and compliance monitoring, because guesstimating cash flow is not a good business strategy.
2 — Supply Chain Savvy: Ever had a raw material shortage at the worst time? BC ensures your supply chain is as predictable as an injection molding cycle, keeping production on track.
3 — Grace Under Pressure: Whether you’re working with polymers, resins, or composite materials, BC helps manage formulas, batch tracking, and production planning so you don’t waste time or resources.
4 — Sales That Stick: Integrated sales and order processing means smoother transactions with less confusion about custom orders, bulk pricing, and delivery schedules, because “we lost your shipment” is never a good excuse.
You may have decided it’s a good idea (and the right time) to move from GP to BC, but you’ve still got a nagging feeling your company will need more than the ERP in standard BC. That’s where Yaveon’s Manufacturing Suite for Business Central comes in, with robust, world-class functionality, designed for process manufacturing built on and running as part of BC!
Key Benefits of Yaveon
Industry-Specific — Yaveon provides custom add-ons tailored for plastics and process manufacturing, covering batch management, compliance tracking, and raw material sourcing.
Seamless Integration — Yaveon works inside BC, so you don’t have to juggle multiple platforms or risk data getting lost in translation.
Increased Automation — From material planning to order fulfillment, Yaveon helps automate processes so your team can focus on production, not paperwork.
Compliance & Traceability — Whether it’s ISO standards, FDA regulations, or sustainability tracking, Yaveon ensures you meet industry requirements without drowning in extra work.
Yaveon Knows the Process
Yaveon simplifies things like batch traceability, labeling, and quality control, ensuring you’re always audit-ready.
They don’t just understand ERP; Yaveon understands all aspects of plastics and other process manufacturing. They speak your language, and their software works the way you do.
Think of Yaveon as a group of high-performance engineering consultants who join your team and help continually to optimize process manufacturing technology and workflow efficiency.
Yaveon solutions are built 100% on Microsoft’s Business Central, so you won’t need to worry about multiple systems, clunky connections, or wonky workarounds to run your plastics or other process manufacturing company.
Goodbye to GP (2025 — 2028)
This year (2025), there will be even fewer GP security updates and fixes. In 2026–2027, users will struggle to run legacy GP on updated operating systems, and to maintain legacy connections between GP and other software systems.
Finally, in 2028, GP will be officially decommissioned, after which product support from Microsoft will end forever…
NEXT STEPS
Migrating from Microsoft Great Plains to Business Central may seem overwhelming, but with GP’s end-of-life scheduled for 2028, the time to pick your partner/solution and make a migration plan is NOW!
Don’t worry! With CKS as your dedicated partner, using our QUICKSTEPS data migration tools and project methodology, delivering a modern solution built on Microsoft BC & Yaveon will enable and deliver significant improvement(s) to your process manufacturing operations.
Migration & Training
Review the data you have in GP now—accounting records, sales and purchasing data, inventory records, customer lists—and decide what needs to be moved over to BC.
Microsoft has migration tools which CKS will use to help move your precious data from GP to BC without losing anything vital.
Once your business is running on BC, you can keep GP as an archive until you are fully comfortable with the new system.
New system, new workflows! We will train key managers directly, and use a train-the-trainer approach, so your people don’t panic when GP goes offline…
Work, Thrive & Grow
After launching on the new BC-based system, you can focus on leveraging the platform to optimize and grow your business.
CKS // Cloud Solutions 
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