1C to Business Central Migration: A Guide for Armenia and the CIS

Why do companies move from 1C to Business Central?

Rarely because the accounting stopped working. Companies move when the business has outgrown the way its 1C system was built and maintained, and when the next round of changes would cost more than a new foundation. The reasons we hear most are practical ones, and most companies have two or three of them at once.

Business Central is Microsoft's ERP for small and mid-sized organizations, covering finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, projects, fixed assets, planning, assembly, manufacturing, warehouse management and service management in one system. It runs online in the Microsoft cloud or on-premises, and changes to it are built as AL extensions, which keeps your own logic in a separate layer that can be read, tested and maintained.

• The configuration has been changed for years by one or two programmers, nobody else can explain it, and every update turns into a project of its own.
• An international owner, investor, bank or auditor wants reporting in English and in a group format, alongside the local statutory books.
• The company now runs several legal entities or operates in more than one country and needs one view of all of them.
• Sales already works in Dynamics 365 or Microsoft 365, and the ERP should connect to the CRM through Dataverse instead of through exports.
• Management wants a cloud system with no local servers to run, back up and secure.
• The company wants an ERP that new finance staff, auditors and consultants in other countries already recognise.

Who is a 1C to Business Central move for, and who should wait?

Business Central fits small and mid-sized companies that want finance, inventory, projects and light manufacturing in one cloud system. Finance and Operations fits larger organizations with several legal entities, deep supply chain or production needs, or retail operations on Commerce. If you also run Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, both connect to it through Dataverse. A larger group leaving 1C should settle that choice in the assessment, before any design starts.

Waiting can be the right call too. If your 1C system is stable, your reporting is local only, nobody outside the country reads your numbers and no CRM or group change is coming, the case for moving may be weak today. Revisit it when the owners, the auditors, the group structure or the people who maintain the configuration change.

What changes in the chart of accounts?

More than the account numbers. A 1C chart of accounts usually carries a lot of meaning on the accounts themselves: analytical sections for counterparties, contracts, items, departments or cost items hang off individual accounts, and years of small additions have made some of them do several jobs at once. A straight copy into Business Central carries all of that over and makes reporting harder, not easier.

In Business Central the design is split differently. The general ledger holds the accounts, analysis such as department, project or region is attached to the entries, and the posting setup decides which account a customer, vendor or item posts to. The migration is the moment to separate three things: the statutory Armenian chart of accounts, which the localization provides; the management view your owners want; and the analysis that should live on entries rather than in more accounts.

What changes in documents and day-to-day work?

The documents users know by name, such as invoices, waybills, acts of completed work, cash orders and bank statements, all have a home in Business Central, but the flow around them changes. Sales and purchase documents move through orders, shipments, receipts and invoices, and posted documents become the record. Users who are used to reopening last month's document and posting it again need to learn the habit of correcting with a new document, such as a credit memo, and that training belongs in the plan from the start rather than in the week of go-live.

With the Armenian localization, printed and electronic documents come out in Armenian, and e-invoicing integration with the State Revenue Committee is part of the scope where it applies to your company.

• List the documents each department produces and receives today, and who signs them.
• Map each one to its Business Central document and its printed or electronic layout.
• Agree the correction rules with the chief accountant before training starts.
• Rehearse a full month of real documents in a test environment, not a handful of examples.

What changes in reporting?

Statutory reporting and management reporting change in different ways. Armenian tax and statutory reporting comes with the localization and is checked against your current returns during the parallel run. Management reporting is where companies lose the most time if they try to recreate every report they ever had in 1C. Most of those reports were built to work around something, and the workaround is often gone in the new design.

Start with the reports people actually opened in the last quarter, ask who uses each one and for what decision, and rebuild only those. Group and owner reporting in English usually becomes simpler, because the local and the group view now come from the same ledger.

How should data move from 1C to Business Central?

In layers, with a rehearsal for each, and with a clear answer to what stays behind. Data is exported from 1C into a staging area, cleaned, mapped to the new chart of accounts and the new master data structure, and loaded into Business Central by repeatable, scripted imports. Repeatable matters: the load will run several times in test before it runs once for real, and each run should produce the same totals.

• Decide early how much history moves. Detailed history rarely earns its migration cost; summarized balances plus a read-only 1C database usually serve auditors and comparatives well.
• Clean master data in 1C before the first export where you can: merge duplicate counterparties and retire items nobody sells.
• Keep the mapping tables, from old accounts and codes to new ones, as a deliverable. Auditors will ask for them.
• Your own 1C programmer or accountant is valuable here: they know where the exceptions are hidden in the configuration.

Should you run 1C and Business Central in parallel?

Yes, for a defined period and with a defined purpose. A parallel run means entering the same transactions in both systems and comparing the results, and it is expensive for the accounting team, so it should be short and focused. One full period close is the usual minimum: the trial balance, the tax figures and the open items should agree before 1C is switched to read-only.

Cut over at the start of a period, ideally a month or a quarter, so opening balances are clean. A year start makes annual reporting simpler, but it is a preference rather than a requirement, and waiting months for it can cost more than it saves. The cutover discipline in our NAV to Business Central migration checklist applies just as well to a move from 1C.

• Agree the comparison points in advance: trial balance, VAT and other tax figures, receivables, payables and stock value.
• Staff the parallel run: the accounting team does double work for that period, so plan holidays and deadlines around it.
• Set the exit rule in writing: what has to agree, who signs it off, and the date 1C becomes read-only.
• Keep 1C available read-only for audit and history for as long as your retention rules require.

What does the Business Central Armenian localization cover?

Solzet delivers the Business Central Armenian localization: AMD as the local currency, Armenian tax and statutory reporting, an Armenian chart of accounts, Armenian-language documents, and e-invoicing integration with the State Revenue Committee where applicable. Solzet builds it as extensions on the international (W1) version of Dynamics 365 Business Central, which is available in Armenia.

Microsoft makes Business Central online available in Armenia on the W1 base app and leaves the localization to partners; that is the role Solzet fills. Details are on the Business Central Armenian localization page. For companies in other CIS countries, the localization question is answered country by country in the assessment, before any configuration starts.

How does Solzet run a 1C to Business Central migration?

In phases, each with a written output and a decision at the end. The assessment maps your 1C configuration, documents, reports and integrations, confirms whether Business Central or Finance and Operations fits, and produces a scope and plan you can take to the board. Design covers the chart of accounts, analysis, posting setup, documents and the localization. Build covers configuration, AL extensions for what the standard application does not cover, and integrations. Then come data rehearsals, the parallel run, go-live and support. The service itself is described on our migration to Business Central page, alongside Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation.

We recommend the right solution: Dynamics 365 (Customer Engagement, Business Central or Finance and Operations), Power Platform, or a custom-built CRM. One team for CRM, ERP and the integration between them. If your sales team should work in Dynamics 365 Sales on the same customers, Business Central connects to it through the Dataverse connection, covered on Dynamics 365 consulting; if Microsoft licensing does not suit the CRM side, custom CRM development is the alternative. More decision guides are on the Solzet guides page.