Welcome to Round 27 of our GP vs. Business Central Face-Off — and the start of our bonus rounds. We wrapped the core season with approvals, and now we’re getting granular. First up: fixed assets.
Every company owns things that last longer than a year. Trucks. Laptops. Warehouse racking. The forklift nobody remembers buying. Your ERP has to track what each asset cost, spread that cost over its life as depreciation, and record the gain or loss when you finally sell or scrap it.
Both Dynamics GP and Business Central handle all of that. The difference is where the work happens. In GP, fixed assets live in a module off to the side, with its own calendar and its own posting routine. In Business Central, fixed assets live inside your general ledger, right next to everything else. Let’s walk through the life of one asset in each system.
How You Do It in Dynamics GP
GP’s Fixed Asset Management module is thorough, but it wants setup before you track your first laptop. You build a separate Fixed Assets fiscal calendar, define quarters, create classes, and set up books — up to 32 per company — plus book classes that tie depreciation rules to each combination. Then you pick which book is the corporate book that talks to your general ledger, according to Microsoft’s Fixed Asset Management manual.
To add an asset, you open the Asset General Information window (Financial >> Cards >> Fixed Assets >> General). You enter the asset ID, class, and description. Then you fill in the Asset Book window for each book the asset belongs to, and the Asset Account window, which holds eight different GL accounts per asset. Many companies use account groups so those eight accounts fill in automatically — a setup step our vendor setup round fans will recognize: GP loves a good class record.
To depreciate, you run the depreciation routine (Financial >> Routines >> Fixed Assets >> Depreciate). You pick the book and a target date, and GP calculates depreciation for every asset in that book.
Here’s the part people forget. Depreciation lives in the Fixed Assets module until you run a second routine — GL Posting — which builds a batch of journal entries for the general ledger. If nobody runs GL Posting, your GL and your asset module quietly drift apart. Month-end closes have been ruined by less.
To retire an asset, you open the Retirement window (Financial >> Transactions >> Fixed Assets >> Retire), enter the retirement date and proceeds, and GP calculates the gain or loss. Then — you guessed it — you run GL Posting again to push it to the ledger.
How You Do It in Business Central
Business Central skips the side ledger. Fixed assets post straight into the general ledger through the same journals you already know from Round 1 on journal entries.
To add an asset, you open Fixed Assets and choose New. One card holds the general info and the depreciation book assignment. Fill in the required fields and a notification appears at the top of the page: “You are ready to acquire the fixed asset.” Choose Acquire, and an assisted setup creates and posts the acquisition journal for you, as shown in Microsoft’s acquisition guide. You can also buy an asset directly on a purchase invoice — the acquisition cost posts to the asset the same way item costs posted in our three-way match round. Adding fifty laptops at once? Use Edit in Excel and publish the list back.
To depreciate, you run the Calculate Depreciation batch job. It creates the journal lines, you review them, and you post. That’s it — the entries hit the general ledger immediately, because the FA G/L journal is a general ledger journal. Business Central even calculates daily depreciation, so you can depreciate for any period you like, per Microsoft’s depreciation guide. Posted something wrong? The Cancel FA Ledger Entries batch job backs it out cleanly.
To dispose of an asset, you enter one journal line with the FA Posting Type set to Disposal, choose Insert FA Bal. Account, and post. Business Central calculates the gain or loss and posts everything — asset, accumulated depreciation, proceeds — in one step, per Microsoft’s disposal guide.
No sync routine. No second posting step. No drift.
Side by Side
| Task | Dynamics GP | Business Central |
|---|---|---|
| Where assets live | Separate FA module with its own fiscal calendar | Inside the general ledger |
| Adding an asset | Three windows: General, Book, Account (8 accounts) | One Fixed Asset Card, then Acquire |
| Buying an asset | Enter in Payables, then add to FA module | Straight from a purchase invoice |
| Depreciation | Depreciate routine per book | Calculate Depreciation batch job |
| Getting entries to the GL | Separate GL Posting routine | Posts directly — no extra step |
| Disposal | Retirement window, then GL Posting | One Disposal journal line, gain/loss automatic |
| Bulk asset entry | Manual entry per asset | Edit in Excel, publish the list |
Why BC Comes Out Ahead
GP’s Fixed Asset Management is genuinely capable — 32 books, detailed averaging conventions, solid tax handling. But it’s a ledger on the side. The FA calendar has to be built and maintained. The GL Posting routine has to be run, every time, by someone who remembers. And every asset wants three windows and eight accounts before it exists.
Business Central treats a fixed asset like what it is: part of your books. Acquisition can start from the purchase invoice you were already entering. Depreciation is one batch job and one post. Disposal is one journal line. And because everything flows through the general ledger in real time, the asset subledger and the GL can’t drift apart — there’s nothing to sync.
If your team has ever spent a year-end close hunting for the depreciation batch that never made it to the GL, you already know why this matters.
Thinking About the Switch?
Aisling Dynamics has moved fixed asset registers — books, accumulated depreciation, and all — from GP to Business Central, and we know where the details hide. See what we offer, read more about our services, or contact us at (251) 293-0555 for a straight answer about what your migration would look like.
Next up in the bonus rounds: revenue and expense deferrals — spreading income and costs across the months they belong to, in two very different ways.