After your Business Central implementation goes live, you will need ongoing support for configuration changes, new report requests, user questions and occasional troubleshooting. The industry standard approach is an annual support contract with a minimum spend, a lock-in period and a ticket-based system where requests are queued and prioritised according to the provider's schedule.
We do not believe this model serves clients well. So we created Support Minutes instead.
How Support Minutes Work
You purchase a block of support minutes in advance. There is no minimum quantity, no expiry date and no commitment to buy more. When you need help, you contact us. We complete the work and deduct the time used from your balance. You can check your remaining balance at any time.
That is the entire model. No annual contract, no auto-renewal, no minimum spend, no complex service level agreements with escalation matrices that nobody reads.
Why Small Changes Go Live Within an Hour
Most support requests are small. Add a new dimension value. Create a new user. Modify a report layout. Change a workflow threshold. In a traditional support model, these requests are logged, assigned, queued and eventually delivered. Days pass. Sometimes weeks.
With Support Minutes, our senior consultants handle these requests directly. They know Business Central deeply. They know your configuration because they likely implemented it. A small change that a junior analyst would take half a day to understand and implement, a senior consultant can complete in minutes.
What Support Minutes Cover
Support Minutes cover everything you need after go-live. Configuration changes, new reports, user setup, workflow modifications, data corrections, integration troubleshooting, training, period-end guidance and new feature enablement as Business Central updates. Astral 365 extension support is included too.
For larger pieces of work, such as a new integration or a significant configuration change, we provide a time estimate before starting. You know how many minutes it will consume and you decide whether to proceed.
The Real Maths: Support Minutes vs Annual Contracts
A typical annual support contract from a mid-market partner costs between eight thousand and fifteen thousand pounds per year. That buys you a set number of hours, a ticket system and response times measured in business days. If you do not use your hours, you lose them. If you exceed them, you pay overage rates.
With Support Minutes, a typical client uses between four and eight hours of support per quarter. At our rates, that works out significantly less than an annual contract. More importantly, every minute you purchase goes towards actual work on your system, not towards maintaining a contract relationship.
Consider a common scenario: you need a new dimension value added, a report layout adjusted and a user permission set updated. With a traditional contract, these three requests become three tickets, assigned to a queue, completed over several days. With Support Minutes, a senior consultant completes all three in a single session, typically within thirty minutes. The maths is straightforward: less time spent means fewer minutes consumed means lower cost.
Why We Do It This Way
Because we have been on the other side. We have seen what traditional support contracts look like from the client's perspective. The frustration of paying for support you are not using. The frustration of waiting days for a five-minute change. The frustration of being locked into an annual contract that auto-renews without providing the value you were promised.
Support Minutes align our interests with yours. We earn your continued business by being responsive and effective, not by locking you into a contract. If we do a poor job, you simply stop buying minutes. That accountability keeps us sharp.
What Happens During BC Updates
Microsoft releases major updates to Business Central twice a year, in April and October. Each update brings new functionality, interface changes and occasionally breaking changes for customisations. Under a traditional support model, update preparation and testing is often excluded or charged as a separate project.
With Support Minutes, we proactively review upcoming changes that affect your configuration and notify you if action is required. Testing and update preparation is covered by your minutes balance, the same as any other support work. There is no separate change management fee or update surcharge.
Want to know more about Support Minutes?
Book a discovery call and we will explain exactly how the model works for your specific situation.
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