Migrate from Herbst Insight ERP to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

The Herbst COA is fully exportable and maps to D365 G/L Account Master in Business Central or the LedgerAccount table in Finance and Operations. We preserve account codes, names, account type (P&L vs Balance Sheet), and posting-level flags. Tax codes in Herbst map to Tax Groups in D365, and the customer finance lead must confirm the VAT scheme (standard rate, flat-rate, or ROS-compatible) before we load the tax mapping table. Financial dimensions in Finance and Operations require a separate dimension set configuration before the COA is activated — we create a default dimension set during schema design and flag any multi-dimensional reporting requirements for the customer's D365 admin.

Herbst Customer records carry billing address, shipping address, payment terms, and credit limit in a single master record. We map directly to D365 Customer, preserving the account code as the Customer Number. Customer dimensions from Herbst (if any exist) map to D365 Default Dimensions. In Finance and Operations, the customer address structure requires a primary address designation — we handle multi-address records by setting the primary address and logging secondary addresses in a Customer Address extension table for the customer's admin to confirm.

Herbst Supplier records store address, banking details, and purchasing terms. We map to D365 Vendor with the same account-code-as-number convention used for Customers. In Business Central, Vendor records require a posting group assignment; in Finance and Operations, they require a Vendor Group. We set the default posting group from the supplier type identified during discovery and flag any supplier-specific terms for manual confirmation before vendor records go live.

Herbst Items carry SKU, description, unit of measure, costing method, and BOM data for manufactured variants. We map to D365 Item with the costing method preserved (Standard, FIFO, Average). BOM data from Herbst migrates as D365 Bill of Materials; we map the BOM lines to D365 Production BOM lines. In Finance and Operations, Item is a master entity and requires a Released Product activation step before transactions can be posted — we handle this as part of the schema deployment sequence.

Open payables and receivables must be migrated as balanced header-level records with line-item detail to maintain referential integrity in D365. We extract open Herbst AP and AR records, preserve the original invoice number and due date, and create D365 open ledger entries with the correct remaining-amount and fully-invoiced flags. Any open AP tied to a specific Herbst Purchase Order maps to a corresponding D365 Purchase Order if the order is still open, or to a vendor ledger entry if the order is closed but an invoice remains outstanding. Orphaned lines — AP or AR records with no matching supplier or customer — are flagged for the customer's finance lead before we load.

Herbst order history is exportable but complex. We extract header status, line items, and fulfillment links. Partial or voided orders require value-mapping decisions during scoping — the customer finance lead confirms whether partial orders should be created as open orders in D365 or suppressed from migration. Completed and closed orders migrate as posted invoice history rather than order records. The order-date cutoff for migrating open orders versus historical orders is confirmed during the discovery scoping call.

Herbst stock records include location, batch, and serial number fields that vary by warehouse configuration. We harmonize multi-warehouse stock records and validate bin-level data against the destination warehouse configuration during sandbox migration. In Business Central, inventory is posted through item journals; in Finance and Operations, it is posted through the inventory posting profile. We recommend a go-live stock snapshot migration on the cutover date rather than a full historical stock movement migration, to avoid posting thousands of historical adjustment entries into the live D365 environment.

Herbst payroll module stores effective-dated compensation, deduction codes, and payroll run history subject to Irish employment law compliance. Due to jurisdiction-specific requirements, we migrate payroll as summarised records (annual pay, statutory leave balances, current deduction codes) rather than granular timesheet lines. The customer's HR lead and finance lead must jointly approve the payroll schema before we proceed with any compensation data load. If the destination is Finance and Operations with the Human Resources module, we map employee records to the D365 HCM Worker entity. If the destination is Business Central without HR, we migrate summaries to a custom payroll summary table that the customer's admin provisions.

Herbst user records include role assignments and access permissions that do not map one-to-one to D365 security roles. We extract the full user list and map role names to the nearest D365 security role equivalents identified during discovery. Permissions requiring manual reconfiguration are flagged in a User Mapping Document delivered alongside the migration. The customer's D365 admin provisions the actual D365 user accounts (or assigns from Azure Active Directory) before records referencing those owners are loaded.

Herbst Insight ERP allows custom fields within modules. We catalog every custom field definition during discovery, identify whether an equivalent D365 field already exists, and create extension fields for any remaining custom data. Custom field values migrate as part of the parent record import. In Finance and Operations, extension fields require a developer extension or a data entity that includes the extension field; we flag any Finance and Operations custom field requirements for the customer's implementation partner.

Binary document storage in Herbst (invoice PDFs, images, scanned documents) is not accessible via standard export tools. We export document metadata and references separately and document the SharePoint or Dataverse document management setup the customer should configure in D365 before the cutover window. The actual binary files require a separate file transfer process managed by the customer's IT team using the Herbst access grant. We do not migrate documents as part of the standard migration scope.

Herbst time entries and attendance logs are stored separately from HR records. We map timesheet summary data to D365 Human Resources worker time-off balances or to a Project Service timesheet structure if the customer uses D365 Project Operations. Detailed timesheet lines are flagged as requiring manual entry or a separate time and attendance integration setup because granular timesheet migration across jurisdiction-specific attendance rules introduces compliance risk. The customer's HR lead confirms the timesheet scope during discovery.