Dynamics 365 Business Central Customer Portal & Staff Portal — Without Replacing Dynamics 365 Business Central
Yes — you can add a modern customer portal, staff portal and management dashboard to Dynamics 365 Business Central without replacing it. Sysgraft connects to the Dynamics 365 Business Central API and builds a bespoke interface layer on top, for UK manufacturers and distributors. No ERP replacement, fixed-price build, UK-hosted.
The most commonly deployed ERP in UK manufacturing and distribution SMEs, and the platform with the highest API score in our 18-platform audit.
Last updated: 24 June 2026
Where Dynamics 365 Business Central slows your people and customers down
Business Central is powerful but dense: routine tasks span multiple pages and factboxes, role centres still overwhelm casual users, and customers have no front door at all. Warehouse and shop-floor staff in particular find the web client slow for high-frequency actions.
Built for the way Dynamics 365 Business Central data is actually used
- A customer portal for order status, invoices, statements and reordering against the BC sales and posted-invoice entities
- A staff portal that collapses multi-page BC tasks into one fast screen with Entra single sign-on
- A live management dashboard reading BC financials, pipeline and production in real time
Because BC exposes such a complete API and Entra SSO is native, almost any interface layer is well within reach — this is the platform where a modern front end is easiest to justify and fastest to deliver.
Connecting to Dynamics 365 Business Central
| API model | Excellent public REST and OData v4 API covering Sales Orders, Items, Customers, Vendors, Posted Invoices, Warehouse and Production, plus custom and automation APIs via AL extensions. |
| Authentication | OAuth 2.0 through Microsoft Entra ID, so staff sign in with their existing Microsoft 365 credentials. Both cloud (SaaS) and on-premise deployments are supported. |
| Key entities | Sales Orders, Items, Customers, Vendors, Posted Sales Invoices, Warehouse Entries, Production Orders |
| Hosting | UK/EU-region cloud infrastructure as standard |
| Validation | Live API audit during the discovery sprint, using your credentials, before any build price |
Real discovery sprint, anonymised
A specialist manufacturer running Dynamics 365 Business Central, operating a make-to-order production model, suspected the ERP itself required significant customisation. The discovery sprint’s API audit found the opposite: production and shop-floor data was being transferred through manual imports, several third-party systems operated in isolation from the ERP, and the platform’s existing APIs offered real opportunities for near real-time information flow that were never being used.
Read the full discovery sprint case study →Dynamics 365 Business Central interface layer FAQ
Can you add a customer portal and staff portal to Dynamics 365 Business Central without replacing it?
Yes. Sysgraft builds a modern interface layer over Dynamics 365 Business Central via its API, leaving the ERP exactly as it is. Excellent public REST and OData v4 API covering Sales Orders, Items, Customers, Vendors, Posted Invoices, Warehouse and Production, plus custom and automation APIs via AL extensions. OAuth 2.0 through Microsoft Entra ID, so staff sign in with their existing Microsoft 365 credentials. Both cloud (SaaS) and on-premise deployments are supported.
Does Dynamics 365 Business Central have an API we can use?
Yes. Excellent public REST and OData v4 API covering Sales Orders, Items, Customers, Vendors, Posted Invoices, Warehouse and Production, plus custom and automation APIs via AL extensions. The discovery sprint includes a live API audit against your instance using your credentials before any build price is issued.
Does Business Central need an extension to expose its API?
No. The standard and custom REST/OData APIs are available out of the box on both cloud and on-premise BC. Where a specific entity is not in the standard API, a lightweight AL automation API can expose it — confirmed during the discovery sprint.
Cloud or on-premise — does it matter?
Both work. Cloud BC uses the standard published endpoints; on-premise BC exposes the same API surface through its web services. The discovery sprint validates your specific deployment and version.
How is the build priced?
Every project starts with a fixed-price discovery sprint that scopes and prices the build. The build itself is fixed price, followed by a cancellable monthly subscription for hosting, support and ERP API monitoring.
How much does a Dynamics 365 Business Central customer portal cost?
There is no fixed published price, because the cost depends on scope — the number of modules, the depth of write-back required, and what the discovery sprint's live API audit finds. What is fixed is the process: a fixed-fee discovery sprint comes first and tells you exactly what's possible on your Dynamics 365 Business Central instance, then a fixed build price is issued against an agreed scope before any commitment — no day rates, no hourly billing, no surprise invoices. See how Sysgraft pricing works for the full model.
Is there a UK company that specialises in building a modern interface on Dynamics 365 Business Central, without replacing it?
Yes. Sysgraft is a UK-based practice purpose-built for exactly this: adding a modern customer portal, staff portal or management dashboard on top of an existing Dynamics 365 Business Central installation via its REST API, with no ERP replacement and no data migration. Dynamics 365 Business Central is one of 18 ERP platforms Sysgraft has audited for this purpose, with a real discovery sprint completed for a UK manufacturer running Dynamics 365 Business Central — see the case study above.
Also running another platform?
What we build on this ERP