Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for Food Manufacturing
A complete ERP platform with industry-specific add-ons, Ukrainian localization, and compliance with food industry requirements
Industry-Specific Requirements
The food industry places unique demands on an ERP system. Lot traceability for raw materials and finished goods, shelf-life management, formula-based production, quality control and food safety compliance, integration with weighing systems, registration of co-products and waste, and support for the FEFO principle in the warehouse — these are not optional features to be addressed later, but fundamental operational requirements.
Business Central in its Premium edition covers both discrete and process manufacturing and is well-suited to the food industry in terms of data structure and planning logic. At the same time, the standard functionality requires industry-specific extensions available through Microsoft AppSource. It is precisely the combination of the platform, industry add-ons, and Ukrainian localization that delivers a complete solution requiring no custom development. At Clarity Ukraine, we have completed several projects for food manufacturers and have a thorough understanding of your business requirements and operational specifics.
Standard Business Central Premium Functionality: What’s Included Out of the Box
The base Business Central Premium license ($110 per user per month on a subscription basis) includes a manufacturing module with a full set of tools for planning, production order management, and cost accounting. For food manufacturers, this is the foundation upon which industry-specific add-ons are layered.
Bills of Materials and Routings
The system supports Bills of Materials (BOM) and Routings with versioning. For food manufacturers, this means the ability to maintain multiple recipe versions for a single product, track yield ratios, and calculate planned production cost.
- Multi-level BOMs for complex products
- Recipe versioning with effective dates
- Routing operations linked to specific work and machine centers
- Calculation of standard and actual time per operation
Production Planning and MRP
Material Requirements Planning (MRP) automatically generates replenishment proposals for raw materials and semi-finished goods based on the production plan and current inventory. For food manufacturers with large numbers of ingredients and short raw material shelf lives, this is critically important.
- Planning horizons ranging from several weeks to several months
- Demand calculation accounting for current stock, open orders, and scheduled receipts
- Capacity load planning across machine and human resources
- Identification of bottlenecks in the production process
Production Orders and Cost Accounting
The production order is the central document around which all information is gathered: which components were issued to production, how much was actually consumed, the output quantity, and the time taken. Actual costs are compared against standard costs, enabling variance analysis.
- Planned and actual orders with full lifecycle: open, planned, released, finished
- Automatic or manual component consumption (backflush or direct posting)
- Output registration by operation
- Variance analysis between standard and actual cost
Lot Tracking
Standard Business Central supports tracking by serial number and lot number for all items throughout the chain: raw material receipt, processing, and shipment. For food manufacturers, this is the foundation of traceability: in the event of a defect or recall, it is possible within minutes to identify which raw material lots were used in a specific batch of finished goods and which customers received it.
- Bidirectional traceability: from raw material to customer and in reverse
- Storage of production dates and expiry dates at the lot level
- Quality-based lot blocking without removing items from inventory records
Warehouse Management with FEFO Support
The First Expired, First Out (FEFO) principle enables the system to automatically suggest the lot with the earliest expiry date for picking. This directly reduces write-offs and supports food safety compliance.
- Configurable picking strategy: FEFO, FIFO, or manual selection
- Alerts when picking lots that have expired or are nearing expiry
- Storage of products in climate-controlled zones with individual settings
Quality Control
Business Central includes a basic quality control mechanism: checks can be configured at the point of goods receipt from suppliers or at the output of production. Industry-specific quality management capabilities can be added through dedicated add-ons.
- Configuration of quality tests by operation type
- Blocking of items during quality inspection
- Maintenance of supplier quality certificates
Food Industry-Specific Scenarios and How They Are Addressed
The following are key production scenarios specific to the food industry and how they are implemented in Business Central with add-ons.
Formula-Based (Process) Manufacturing and Batch Management
Unlike discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing in the food industry involves blending multiple raw material components in defined proportions to yield a specific output quantity. Batch size may differ from the ordered quantity. Standard Business Central does not always handle this logic correctly without an extension.
Catchweight: Quantity and Weight Units
Food manufacturers often sell products in units (pieces, packages) but invoice by weight. For example, meat or cheese: a customer orders 10 pieces, but each piece has a different weight. Standard Business Central does not support this logic.
Product Specification: Nutrients, Allergens, and Ingredient Declaration
Regulatory requirements for food product labeling mandate the declaration of nutritional value, allergen lists, and raw material country of origin. Maintaining this information manually in spreadsheets is inefficient and risky.
Sub-Lot Management
In food production, even within a single lot, a product may vary significantly in qualitative characteristics — milk from different milking sessions, different batches of flour from the same delivery, or vegetables from different field zones. Accurate accounting and traceability require the ability to split a lot into sub-lots.
Production Resource Planning and Scheduling
Rough-cut planning (on a weekly and monthly basis) is handled well by Business Central. However, for detailed scheduling of production operations accounting for priorities, equipment changeover time, and breaks, a Gantt-based planning tool is required.
Shop Floor Operations Recording
One of the most common questions during ERP implementation in food manufacturing: how do you get operators to record material consumption and time without unnecessary stops and paperwork? Standard Business Central is not optimized for direct shop floor use.
An effective approach is the Consume All method. Raw materials are transferred to the production floor via the warehouse module, the operator starts and stops the process with a single barcode scan. When complete, remaining materials are returned to the warehouse and the system automatically calculates actual consumption as the difference. This approach is especially practical for food processes where it is difficult to precisely record each portion of raw material.
Typical Solution Architecture for a Food Manufacturer
A complete solution for a mid-sized food manufacturer in Ukraine consists of several layers:
|
Platform |
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium (SaaS, Azure cloud) |
|
Localization |
Clarity Ukraine: VAT on first event, M.E.Doc, statutory reporting under UAS, local print forms |
|
Manufacturing |
Aptean Process Manufacturing: process production, batches, co-products, batch sizing |
|
Quality & Specification |
Aptean Product Specification, Aptean Catch Weight, Aptean Sublot Management |
|
Planning |
Aptean Production Scheduling or ROB-EX Scheduler Connector |
|
Warehouse |
Warehouse Insight (Insight Works): mobile warehouse with scanning and FEFO |
|
Shop Floor |
Shop Floor Insight (Insight Works): operations recording, Consume All method |
|
Reporting |
Power BI (native integration) + Clarity Ukraine Accounting Reports |
|
Additional |
Integration with LIMS, weighing equipment, EDI via REST API or ISV connectors |
Clarity Ukraine Add-Ons to Complement Standard Business Central Functionality
Clarity Ukraine has developed a range of business add-ons for Business Central, several of which are directly valuable for food manufacturers. These solutions are designed with Ukrainian business practices in mind and address both accounting and operational needs.
Accounting by Agreements
Food manufacturers frequently work with retail chains and distributors under complex contracts that include deferred payment terms, retroactive bonuses, and quarterly price reviews. Standard Business Central does not provide convenient analytics at the contract level.
The Accounting by Agreements add-on from Clarity Ukraine enables full accounting and reporting based on contracts: easy creation of contracts with customers and suppliers, tracking of balances and turnover by individual contract, and separate analytics for accounts receivable and payable at the contract level.
Extended Trial Balance (Turnovers)
The Accounting Reports (Turnovers) add-on generates a trial balance in the format familiar to Ukrainian accountants: opening balances, period turnover, and closing balances for each account, with drill-down capability. Detailed transaction breakdowns for general ledger accounts by customer or supplier are especially useful for financial control departments at food companies with large numbers of counterparties.
Extended Treasury
A module for monitoring cash receipts and disbursements, creating and approving payment requests, and generating enhanced cash flow forecasts.
Співставлення банківських платежів
This add-on enables convenient and rapid configuration of integrations with most client-bank systems, export of payment orders, and import of bank statements into Business Central.
Development of new add-ons and vertical solutions is an ongoing activity at Clarity Ukraine, operating as a dedicated product line within the company.
For the CFO of a food manufacturer, the ability to quickly obtain margin data by product category, compare standard and actual costs, and assess the impact of raw material price fluctuations on the overall financial result is also critically important.
Why Business Central Rather Than a Vertical Industry System
Many food manufacturers consider the choice between Business Central and a specialized ERP (for example, systems built exclusively for the food industry). The case for Business Central is as follows:
Platform stability.
Business Central is supported by Microsoft and updated twice a year. The company receives new features and fixes without the risk of losing support. The Business Central platform has existed since 1983 (formerly known as Navision and NAV) and is one of the most widely deployed and mature ERP systems in the world.
Microsoft Marketplace ecosystem.
More than 8,000 add-ons on the app portal allow industry-specific requirements to be addressed without custom development. Most industry solutions are Microsoft-certified and updated alongside the platform.
Microsoft 365 integration.
Outlook, Teams, Excel, SharePoint, Power BI, and Power Automate work natively with Business Central. For operational teams at food manufacturers, this eliminates a large portion of manual work.
Copilot AI.
Microsoft is integrating generative AI tools into Business Central, opening possibilities for automated variance analysis, raw material demand forecasting, and inbound document processing.
AI Agents.
The Sales Order Agent analyzes incoming customer emails, recognizes orders, identifies the customer in the ERP database, and automatically creates a draft sales order. The Payables Agent monitors mailboxes for incoming supplier invoices, recognizes them using AI, matches the data, and prepares draft invoices for review by the accountant.
Scalability.
From 5 to 500 users on a single platform, with support for multiple legal entities, multi-currency, and multi-language environments at no additional infrastructure cost.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which license is required?
A manufacturing company requires the Business Central Premium license. This includes the manufacturing module, project management, and service management. The Essential license, which is priced lower, does not include the manufacturing module. In addition to the Business Central license, the cost of industry add-ons (such as Aptean Process Manufacturing or Production Scheduling) must be factored in, as these carry separate subscription fees.
Cloud or On-Premises?
Microsoft is actively developing the cloud-based Business Central SaaS version on Azure, which receives updates automatically twice a year. An On-Premises version is available, but updates are performed manually and some of the latest features (including Copilot AI) are available only in the cloud. For food manufacturers in Ukraine, the cloud version is the optimal choice: it reduces the burden on IT, ensures continuous availability, and supports access from any device.
How long does implementation take?
For a mid-sized food manufacturer (50–200 users, 2–5 production lines), a typical project takes between 8 and 12 months, and in some cases longer. Duration is influenced by: the complexity of the recipe database and number of SKUs, the presence of integrations with laboratory and weighing equipment, reporting requirements, and the number of legal entities in the corporate structure. Duration also depends on the time required for users to adapt to the new system.
Is integration with LIMS laboratory systems possible?
Yes. Business Central has an open REST API that enables bidirectional integration with most LIMS systems. Analysis results can be automatically transferred to the Business Central lot card and affect the blocking status. Integration with weighing equipment, manufacturing automation systems (SCADA), and e-commerce platforms is built in a similar manner.
How does Business Central handle product recalls?
Thanks to bidirectional traceability via lot numbers, the system can produce within minutes a complete list of: which raw materials and suppliers were used in a specific production batch, and which customers received it and in what quantities. For regulatory audits, this is covered by standard reports. Aptean industry add-ons further enhance this with sub-lot management and quality attributes, increasing the precision of analysis.
Does the system comply with FSSC 22000, ISO 22000, and HACCP requirements?
Business Central with Aptean industry extensions and the quality control system covers the majority of documentation required for certification — including inspection records, batch management, supplier tracking, and deviation registration. That said, the system is an ERP platform, not a specialized Food Safety Management System (FSMS). For comprehensive management of HACCP plans, critical control point checklists, and real-time monitoring, some companies additionally use specialized solutions integrated with Business Central via API.



