Using Dynamics NAV Licences Across Businesses
I recently went through an experience which taught me a valuable lesson, so I want to share it here. It relates to a topic which is unclear and often leads to customers and partners making assumptions – using NAV (formerly Navision) licences across businesses.
There is some confusion around how NAV (formerly Navision) licences can be used by different sister companies, head offices and group organisations. I had to help out a CBIZ client when the licencing situation caused a headache for them.
One of our big corporate clients (which has more than 198 different companies within the group) recently went through a transition where they changed the ownership of a subsidiary company from UK ownership to a European ownership.
Although the Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) community doesn’t always talk about these issues, I felt it was worth explaining this scenario, as it will provide helpful information to anyone else in a similar position about the use of the Dynamics 365 BC/Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) licence, what to purchase and also what savings can be made.
The Client’s NAV Challenge
Referring to the diagram above, Company ‘X’ held a licence with 17 users on it, which they wanted Companies ‘A’ and ‘A1’ to access. These two companies were in the process of moving ownership from Company ‘Y’ to Company ‘Z’.
The initial assumption was that it would be necessary to purchase a new licence for either Company Z or Company A. If we’d gone ahead with that, there would have been additional expenditure of £35,000 for the companies and a profit for CBIZ.
However, I remembered reading that ownership plays an important part in licencing and there was a possibility that we could save the corporation that £35,000. I was convinced that this was the case, so I decided to contact Microsoft to get confirmation of this.
The NAV Licencing Solution
The end result was there was no need to purchase any new NAV licenses under the Licensing Guide, and the ‘affiliate’ section within the licensing document allowed for use of the licenses amongst affiliates.
This was permissible as long as the ‘mother company,’ (in this case Company Z) owned more than 50% of any of the companies below. What this actually meant was a saving of £35,000 for the customer in terms of purchasing additional NAV licenses or potential future upgrades.
If you’d like to learn more about how Dynamics NAV can help your business, click here. If you’re in a similar situation to our corporate client and want to know how CBIZ could help you, please get in touch.