Customisation or standard: when should you build?

A customisation solves a specific problem, but it also becomes part of your operations. It has to be maintained, tested and survive updates. This article helps you decide when to build, when standard or configuration is enough, and which costs follow after delivery, so you can judge the customisation over its whole life and not only the price of building it.

Start with the standard

Business Central can be configured extensively. Microsoft Learn describes how you can personalise pages for a profile, change which elements are shown and use configuration packages. Always ask: can it be solved without code?

It is often cheaper to change a process to fit the standard than to change the system to fit the process.

Ask the consultant to show how the standard can be used for your need before anything is built. If they cannot, ask someone else. It is a cheap way to avoid an expensive customisation.

What a customisation costs after delivery

Microsoft updates Business Central twice a year, with minor updates in between. Microsoft Learn says that a per-tenant extension can come into conflict with a new version, and that before a major update Microsoft checks customisations and sends a notification about problems found. If an extension cannot be updated before the version reaches its mandatory update period, it is uninstalled automatically.

This means every customisation has a maintenance cost. Ask who is responsible for it and how it is charged.

Ask for the quote to state how a customisation is handled at each new version and what testing costs. Ask also who is contacted when Microsoft sends a notification about compatibility problems, so the message does not end up with an employee who has left.

Alternatives to building

Remember also to assess whether the need is lasting. A customisation that will be used for six months is hard to defend if it has to be maintained for five years.

Ask also whether other customers have the same need and whether a general solution is coming. Microsoft has an ideas portal where users vote on wishes. It is no guarantee, but it can show whether the need is widespread.

Before you order code, go through these options:

Configuration and page personalisation in the standard
An app from Microsoft AppSource, if one exists and covers the need
Power Automate, Power BI or Excel for reporting and flows
A changed process on your side
A request to Microsoft through the ideas portal, if it is a general gap

When it makes sense to build

It makes sense when the need is specific to you and creates value every day, when the alternatives do not cover it, and when you accept the maintenance. Ask for a description of what the customisation touches in the standard code. The fewer changes to existing functionality, the easier it is to upgrade.

Extensions are built as additions to standard objects. That is exactly the point of the extension model that Microsoft describes.

Ask for a short written justification for the customisation, and keep it. In a few years you can use it to judge whether the customisation is still needed.

Also decide what happens if you get a new partner. Can someone else read and maintain the code? That is a good argument for clear names, comments and a short description of how the customisation is built.

Questions for a supplier

What does maintenance cost per year, and what does it cover
How is the customisation tested before each new version
Who owns the code, and can we have it
What happens if the customisation no longer works
Is there a standard solution you have considered

At Addverk

See services and prices on the page about services and prices. Ask for an assessment of the alternatives before you order a customisation, whichever supplier you use.