Dynamics GP Support Staffing for the run-out to end of support
Contract GP administrators and developers who keep Great Plains closing clean while you decide when to move.
Update coupon 10 of 10December 2029The last all-inclusive Dynamics GP update, and the last payroll tax table in the book.
Dynamics GP support staffing from KORE1 places contract GP administrators, Dexterity and eConnect developers and financial consultants on a Great Plains system that has to keep closing until Microsoft support ends on December 31, 2029 and security patches end on April 30, 2031.
Last updated: October 9, 2026
- This page
- A Dynamics GP system that still works, still closes and still files, with a dated end of support and no migration date agreed yet.
- Not this page
- The platform Microsoft wants you on next is Business Central consultant staffing. A GP implementation that stalled or broke is ERP project rescue. Switching the old box off at the end is decommissioning a legacy system.
Nothing is wrong with your GP system. That’s the awkward part. It posts. It closes. Your controller knows every quirk of the chart of accounts, and the last real outage was a RAID controller in 2019.
Then a date lands in the audit file. Microsoft will stop shipping product enhancements, regulatory tax updates and technical support for Dynamics GP after December 31, 2029, and security patches end eighteen months later. GP has also been closed to new subscription customers since April 1, 2026, so the pool of people who do this work stopped growing on that day.
So the question isn’t whether to migrate. Everyone migrates eventually. It’s who holds the system while you work out when, and that is a staffing problem wearing a software costume. KORE1 has placed technology and finance contractors since 2005, and these seats come off our IT staffing and accounting and finance benches on a KORE1 contract. We have nothing to resell you at the end of it.
Ten Dynamics GP Updates Left, and Then the Book Is Empty
Under the Modern Lifecycle Policy, Microsoft commits to three all-inclusive Dynamics GP updates a year, released June 1, October 1 and December 1, and you stay supported by taking at least one. That makes the run-out countable. Here is the whole book from this year to the end, with the stubs already torn out.
Dynamics GP 18.x · all-inclusive update coupons
Counted October 9, 2026 · three committed slots a year
- 2026 Jun 1Torn, coupon already torn out Oct 1Torn, coupon already torn out Dec 1Open, coupon still in the book 1 left of 3 The October coupon was torn eight days ago. December carries the 2026 year-end payroll and 1099 forms.
- 2027 Jun 1Open, coupon still in the book Oct 1Open, coupon still in the book Dec 1Open, coupon still in the book 3 left of 3 A full year, and the cheapest one in the book to run a migration alongside, because nothing is scarce yet.
- 2028 Jun 1Open, coupon still in the book Oct 1Open, coupon still in the book Dec 1Open, coupon still in the book 3 left of 3 Also full, at a higher price. Every other GP shop in the country is booking the same consultants.
- 2029 Jun 1Open, coupon still in the book Oct 1Open, coupon still in the book Dec 1Last, the last coupon in the book 3 left of 3 December 1, 2029 is the final coupon. Install it and you hold the last payroll tax table Microsoft will ever write for GP.
- 2030 Jun 1None, no coupon, Microsoft ships nothing into this slot Oct 1None, no coupon, Microsoft ships nothing into this slot Dec 1None, no coupon, Microsoft ships nothing into this slot 0 left of 3 Security patches only, if needed. The 2030 payroll year is the first one your team closes with no tax table behind it.
- 2031 Jun 1None, no coupon, Microsoft ships nothing into this slot Oct 1None, no coupon, Microsoft ships nothing into this slot Dec 1None, no coupon, Microsoft ships nothing into this slot 0 left of 3 Security patches stop April 30, 2031. Service plan coverage ends that day, and no more perpetual users can be added.
10 coupons left of 18 slots4 year-end closes still covered by a tax table38 months to the last one
Reading the book
- Open. An all-inclusive update you can still install. 9 of them.
- Last. December 2029. One instance in the whole figure.
- Torn. Already released. Still real, just behind you.
- None. Microsoft ships nothing into that slot.
A finite book changes the staffing question. You are not hiring for a system, you are hiring for 38 months.
Most GP shops read the 2029 date and hear five years. Microsoft’s own lifecycle page is narrower than that. Since October 2019, GP 18.x has run under the Modern Lifecycle Policy: three all-inclusive updates a year on June 1, October 1 and December 1, each carrying hotfixes, tax changes and whatever regulatory work the year demanded, and you stay supported by taking at least one of the three.
So count what is left. Ten coupons out of 18 slots between now and the end. June and October 2026 are already torn, which leaves December 2026, nine updates across 2027 to 2029, and then nothing in 2030 or 2031.
December 31, 2029 also isn’t the date finance feels first. The tax table is. A payroll year gets closed in the January after it ends, so the December 1, 2029 coupon carries the last W-2, 1099 and withholding update GP will ever receive, and it covers the 2029 payroll year. Four year-ends are still covered: 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029. The 2030 payroll year, filed in January 2031, has nothing behind it. No table. No form change. Your team, a spreadsheet, and whatever the IRS published that November.
What each window is for
- Through 2027, write down what the system actually doesEvery Dexterity customization, every eConnect integration, every Integration Manager job, every SmartList and Management Reporter view finance quietly depends on, every third-party module and the version it is pinned to. Four of the ten remaining coupons land in this window. Cheapest work in the whole run-out, and almost nobody does it while there is time, because nothing is broken and nothing forces the issue.
- Keep taking at least one of the three every yearSkip a whole calendar year and you fall off the Modern Lifecycle, which ends your right to support three or four years before Microsoft was going to end it anyway. One compliance item in the entire run-out. A day of work, maybe two, against a June, October or December release.
- Pick the migration date off your calendar, not Microsoft’sWhen is your close worst? Go live at the other end of that year. A cutover timed to your own fiscal calendar beats one timed to December 31, 2029 every time, and a data migration team books out months before you want them. Microsoft is pointing GP customers at Dynamics 365 Business Central, which is a reasonable default and still a decision you get to make on your own schedule.
- Staff the overlap honestlySomebody runs GP while somebody else builds the replacement, and for two or three closes somebody runs both. Those are two jobs, sometimes three. Hand all of it to the controller who has run GP since 2011 and you get a migration that slips a year, plus a resignation letter in month seven.
- Leave the data readable after April 30, 2031Your retention policy does not care that the application stopped. Decide early whether twenty years of GL history travels into the new system, sits in a read-only archive, or lands in a reporting database you build on purpose. That one decision drives migration scope more than anything else on this list, and it is almost always made late and by accident. Note the other thing that happens on April 30, 2031: service plan coverage ends, subscription licences stop renewing, and you can no longer add perpetual users to the system at all.
None of that needs a partner contract or a signed migration statement of work. It needs two or three people who have done it before, for a defined stretch, on your payroll or ours. Worth knowing that Dynamics SL, GP’s sibling product, runs out on a different clock entirely, with extended support ending July 11, 2028, so a company running both is managing two deadlines, not one.
End of Support Isn’t One Event, It’s Four
The announcement reads as one date. It arrives as four, and they land on different desks.
Worth checking which lifecycle you are even on first. Any tax release or hotfix applied to Dynamics GP 2018 moves the install to version 18.5 or later, which enacts the Modern Lifecycle Policy, so almost every GP shop in the country is now on 18.x whether or not anybody decided to be.
- Tax and regulatory updatesFederal and state withholding tables, W-2, 1099 and ACA form changes. This is the one that reaches payroll. It lands in January, the worst possible month to find out about it.
- Product fixesA posting bug after December 2029 is a permanent posting bug. Your workaround becomes the documentation, and it lives in somebody’s head until they leave.
- Technical supportNo case to open. Microsoft is already candid that the help you get before the cutoff “may no longer match the standards you’ve come to expect” as resources thin out, which is a remarkably honest thing to put in writing.
- Security patchesEighteen months past the rest, to April 30, 2031, and only if needed. Nothing after that. GP gets no extended security updates.
Then there is the stack underneath, which keeps its own dates and does not care about yours. GP is a Windows application sitting on SQL Server, with a DYNAMICS system database and one database per company, and plenty of those boxes are on versions that aged out first. SQL Server 2016 left extended support in July 2026, on Microsoft’s own lifecycle record. A shop can be unsupported from the database up while the application is still posting perfectly.
Older GP versions carry their own fixed dates too. Dynamics GP 2013 ended April 11, 2023. GP 2015 ended April 8, 2025. GP 2016 and 2016 R2 ended July 14, 2026, and GP 2018 and 2018 R2 run to January 11, 2028, which is twenty-three months before the 18.x date most people are planning around.
Your independent software vendors are the other half. Payroll tax services, EDI connectors, document management, Safe Pay and bank reconciliation, fixed assets, warehouse scanning. Every one is a separate company making its own call about when GP stops being worth a developer’s time, and a few will quit years before Microsoft does. Ask each one for a date in writing. You will be surprised who already has one.
Run the Book Out, or Migrate Early
Both are defensible. They cost different money at different times, and they need different people. This is the comparison we end up drawing on a whiteboard in most first calls.
| Run the book out | Migrate early | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost shape | Flat and small. A fractional administrator plus a developer on call, annual service plan, no project budget | A capital hump now, then a lower run rate on a subscription you are already paying for |
| Who you need | A GP administrator, a Dexterity or eConnect developer for the customizations, a financial consultant at close | An implementation lead, a data migration specialist, a parallel-close accountant, plus the GP people anyway |
| Scarcity risk | Rises every year. The GP bench shrank the day new sales closed, and nobody is training into it | Falls. You compete for Business Central people, a market that is still growing |
| What finance feels first | The 2030 payroll year, closed without a tax table and reconciled by hand | One or two parallel closes, which is real work your team does twice |
| Audit position | Harder each year. An unsupported financial system in scope invites a finding and sometimes a cyber insurance question | Clean, once the first close ties out |
| What you give up | Nothing you have today. You keep every customization and every report exactly as built | Some of those customizations, because the replacement does it differently and sometimes better |
| Worst case | You start the migration in 2030 under a deadline, in a seller’s market, with nobody left who remembers the build | You spend money earlier than you had to on a system that was working |
Most companies land in the middle. They run GP with a small contract team while a migration gets scoped and funded. That is the version this page staffs. If you’re still choosing the target platform, ERP selection advisory comes first, and the hiring market for NetSuite against Dynamics 365 is worth reading before you commit, because the talent pool is part of the total cost. When the migration does get funded, our Business Central migration cost calculator prices the licenses, partner hours and history load before the first proposal arrives.
10
all-inclusive Dynamics GP updates left as of October 2026, out of the 18 slots on Microsoft’s three-a-year schedule
$85 to $165
an hour, the 2026 range for Microsoft Dynamics contractors placed through a staffing firm
17
days, on average, for KORE1 to fill an IT search
92%
still working where we placed them, twelve months on
Update count derived from the release table on Microsoft’s Dynamics GP lifecycle page. Contract range is the Microsoft Dynamics row in KORE1’s 2026 ERP consultant rate guide, where GP administration sits in the lower half and Dexterity development in the upper half. Fill time and retention from KORE1’s placement data.
The Real Risk Is One Person, Not One Date
Mike Carter runs partnership success at KORE1 and wrote our 2026 ERP rate guide. He has watched the same thing happen on a dozen GP accounts.
The dates are published and manageable. The people are not. A twenty-year-old GP install usually has exactly one person who understands it end to end, and that person is almost never in IT. It’s the assistant controller who built the SmartList Builder view the whole close runs on. Or the developer who wrote the Dexterity customization in 2013, shipped it into FORMS.DIC and REPORTS.DIC, and retired to Arizona in 2022 without writing any of it down.
Two things follow.
- Knowledge transfer is the deliverable, not a phase at the endA contract GP administrator who leaves behind a runbook, a list of every modified form and report, and a note on which eConnect procedures the integrations call has done the job. One who leaves a quiet system and no notes has moved the problem, not solved it.
- Protect the person who knows itDon’t make them the migration lead too. Put a contractor beside them for two or three days a month, let them keep closing, and buy their knowledge in writing instead of in overtime. At $85 to $165 an hour that is a cheaper insurance policy than a six-week gap in the close calendar.
His blunter version, from a call this summer.
“The software has a date. Your people have a notice period.”
Worth sitting with. Microsoft announced the GP end date in 2024 and then moved it out by three months, which gave everybody roughly five years of notice. Your assistant controller will give you two weeks, and planning that handover is the only part of this you actually control.
The Four Seats a GP Run-Out Needs
Almost nobody needs all four at once. A 60-user shop on 18.7 with two company databases and no Dexterity code needs one of them. A 400-user manufacturer with four companies, intercompany eliminations and a 2013 customization needs three. Most start with one and add the second when a migration date gets real.
2 to 3 days a month
GP administrator
Takes at least one of the June, October and December updates, runs the task and role security model, keeps the DYNAMICS database and the SQL maintenance plan honest.
Top of the rate band
GP developer
Dexterity chunks, eConnect procedures, Integration Manager jobs, VBA modifications, SSRS and Report Writer. Scarcest of the four, and the only seat that can document the 2013 build nobody kept notes on.
Busy 5 days in 20
Financial consultant
A controller-level contractor who knows GP’s general ledger, intercompany eliminations, fixed assets and Management Reporter, and can carry one close while your team runs a parallel one.
Last of the four
Migration lead
Scopes the move, decides which years of GL history travel and which get archived read-only, then runs cutover. Arrives only once the business has picked a target.
Contract rates run $85 to $165 an hour across Microsoft Dynamics in 2026. GP administration sits in the lower half, Dexterity and eConnect work at the top, and a fractional administrator at two or three days a month lands well under what one full-time hire costs. Or you buy a defined piece as a statement of work when the result is easy to describe, like a written inventory of every modified form, report and integration in the system.
Companies that want the person permanently go direct hire instead, and plenty of GP administrators are glad to be that person for the last three years of a system they genuinely like. When the migration does start, the go-live and hypercare bench covers the first two closes on the new platform while the GP seats stay on. Our IT searches have averaged 17 days and 92% of placements are still in seat at twelve months, which counts for more than usual on an engagement measured in years.
What the First Ninety Days Looks Like
The shape barely changes between companies. The duration does, and it tracks one variable: how much of the last twenty years anybody wrote down. On a 2-company, 40-user install with no custom code this is three weeks. On a 4-company manufacturer with Dexterity, eConnect and nine third-party modules it is closer to ninety days.
- Week oneFind out what you haveVersion and build number off the About box, which tells you whether you are on 18.x under Modern Lifecycle or still on a fixed-lifecycle 2016 or 2018 install. Then the count of company databases beside the DYNAMICS system database, the named-user count against what you actually license, and which third-party modules are registered.
- Weeks two to sixWrite the system downEvery modified form and report in FORMS.DIC and REPORTS.DIC, every Dexterity chunk, every eConnect integration and Integration Manager job, every scheduled SQL job, and the SmartList and Management Reporter views finance actually opens rather than the ones IT believes they open. Out comes one document somebody who has never seen your install could run it from.
- By week eightPut a number on both pathsWhat a fractional GP administrator costs a year at $85 to $165 an hour, against what migrating in 2027, 2028 or 2029 costs with the scarcity premium priced in rather than assumed away. Four year-ends still carry a tax table: 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029. The 2030 payroll year does not.
- OngoingHold the systemTake at least one of the June, October and December updates each year, close the month, keep the runbook current as things change. Unglamorous. It is also the entire reason nobody panics in December 2029.
Most of these systems have grown since GP 10 with nobody writing anything down, and those are the ninety-day ones. The three-week version happens when an administrator already keeps good notes, and those companies usually find the run-out costs a fraction of the migration quote sitting next to it on the same slide.
One more thing the ninety days buys you. A written answer for the auditor who asks what happens on December 31, 2029 and on April 30, 2031, which is a question that now shows up in cyber insurance renewals as well. If that finding is what brought you here rather than the migration, IT strategy consulting and a fractional CIO can carry the board conversation while the contract team holds the system steady underneath it.
Common Questions
When does Dynamics GP support actually end?
December 31, 2029 for product enhancements, regulatory tax updates and technical support, then April 30, 2031 for security patches if any are needed. The date has moved once. It was announced as September 30, 2029 before Microsoft pushed it to the end of that year, which matters if somebody on your team is still quoting the old one.
Can we keep running Dynamics GP after 2029?
Yes. Nothing switches off on January 1, 2030, and a perpetual licence stays yours. What ends is tax tables, fixes and the right to open a case, so the practical limit turns out to be payroll compliance and your auditor rather than the software. After April 30, 2031 you also cannot add perpetual users to the system, which quietly caps how much the company can grow on it.
What does it cost to staff GP support during the run-out?
$85 to $165 an hour covers Microsoft Dynamics contractors placed through a staffing firm in 2026, with GP administration in the lower half and Dexterity or eConnect work toward the top. Most shops don’t need a full seat. Two or three days a month is a common shape.
Is it cheaper to run GP out or migrate now?
Running it out is cheaper every year and more expensive at the end. Scarcity is the variable almost nobody prices. The GP bench stopped growing on April 1, 2026 when Microsoft closed new subscription sales, so the same consultant costs more in 2029 than in 2027, and the migration you deferred gets done against a deadline instead of a plan.
Do we still have to install the Dynamics GP updates?
At least one of the three, every year. Microsoft introduced the Modern Lifecycle Policy for GP in October 2019 and it keeps you supported only while you stay current, with the all-inclusive updates shipping June 1, October 1 and December 1. Skip a whole calendar year and you have handed back support that was still sitting there for you. Avoidable.
Can you find people who still know Great Plains?
We can, though it is a different search than a Business Central one. GP people are long-tenured, often semi-retired, and almost never on a job board, so this runs on network rather than applications. Our IT searches have averaged 17 days start to finish and 92% of placements are still in seat at twelve months. A Dexterity developer runs longer than a GP administrator, because there are fewer of them every year and they all know it.
Will your GP consultants push us toward a migration?
No. We don’t sell the destination. KORE1 places contractors and carries no software licence or implementation revenue, so nobody here earns more if your answer turns into a project. Plenty of our GP placements have spent three years helping a company not migrate yet.
Tell Us Which Update You Last Took
That one number tells us most of what we need. Version and build, roughly how many company databases, whether anything was customized, and when your fiscal year ends. We’ll come back with who we’d put in the seat and what the run-out costs a year.
Talk to a GP Staffing Lead →Or call 949-706-6990
