As a GP / Great Plains consultant for over 20 years, CSSI keeps tabs on Microsoft’s software roadmap. You may have noticed lots of marketing around Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Business Central, and you may have felt some pressure to migrate. While CSSI will be here to support you if and when you decide to migrate, be aware that you do not need to do so in any currently foreseeable future.
Why Dynamics GP / Great Plains Remains So Popular
The community of Great Plains users is remarkably dedicated and passionate. Did you know that GP is used by over 20,000 customers?
Great Plains remains popular for many reasons:
- GP meets the customer’s requirements.
- Over time, the customer has integrated GP add-ons and customizations to create a highly specialized accounting system perfectly suited to its business needs.
- The customer does not foresee benefits from migrating to a cloud-based ERP environment. In fact, the higher costs of cloud hosting become prohibitive.
- Customers who do not regularly update to new GP versions do not want to be forced to do so.
Microsoft’s Commitment to Great Plains / GP
This past April, Microsoft made an announcement on the future of Microsoft Dynamics GP.
Their announcement states that, as of April 1, 2026 (3 years from now), there will be no new customer sales of Dynamics GP. As a steppingstone to this, from April 2025 there will be no new sales of GP Perpetual licenses. Subscription sales can still happen for the additional year.
HOWEVER, this will have no implications for existing customers! Existing customers can continue to purchase new licenses and modules after 2026. There will still be tax and other product updates for Dynamics GP, including lots of new features already planned for the next version (18.6), due to release October 2023. And this will continue with future versions 18.7, 18.8, etc.
Therefore, for existing Microsoft Dynamics GP customers, nothing has really changed. Microsoft has committed to continuing support and development of Dynamics GP to 2028 and beyond.
How CSSI Can Help You with GP
CSSI is pleased to support the community of 20,000 companies using Great Plains. We plan to continue to support GP for as long as our customers need us.
We can help you with:
Contact CSSI
For help with Great Plains, please contact CSSI. We’d be pleased to help with friendly, practical GP support.