November 20, 2019 – The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is San Francisco’s premier performing arts center that hosts a culmination of events that feature visual art, performances, and film. YBCA leveraged Sage Intacct to increase budget accuracy by 30% which has helped their organization complete their monthly close 60% faster. With Sage Intacct, YBCA automated previously manual processes and improved financial visibility, boosting the finance team’s productivity by 25% and eliminating temporary worker costs of $30,000.
The mission of YBCA is to generate culture that moves individuals and commemorates artists’ efforts. To execute their mission, the organization supplements rental fee incomes from meetings, conferences, and other special events with city grants and donations. As they grew and generated increasing income and visitor support, YBCA realized it needed to upgrade its financial systems from an outdated, on-premises solution.
Previously, the organization was dedicating hours of work into manual duplicate data entry and Excel workarounds. After transitioning to Sage Intacct, YBCA was able to streamline its business system, move to the cloud, and improve financial visibility.
“Sage Intacct has become an invaluable management tool for our organization,” commented Chris Safford, finance director at YBCA. “We produce more helpful reports and keep everything in dynamic dashboards, so managers no longer have to work in the dark. Our board has all the high-level metrics they need, along with drill-down details that ensure confidence in key decisions.”
After implementing Sage Intacct, the finance team at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts realized several significant benefits, including:
- 25% productivity increase: Sage Intacct provides easy-to-understand reports with visual impact; people who aren’t in finance can track progress parallel to their mission, which helped the finance team improve productivity by 25%.
- 60% faster monthly close: The finance team sped up all financial processes (accounts payable, deposits, accounts receivable, budgeting, and reporting) and can deliver any information the city requires before releasing grant funding each year and quickly produce financial reports for stakeholders. The elimination of duplicate data entry led to a 60% faster close, saving $30,000 on extra employee costs to help execute their financial processes.
- 30% more accurate program visibility: The combination of Sage Intacct and Adaptive Insights enables more agile budgeting and planning. According to Safford, by eliminating rekeying of data between the accounting and budgeting systems, the center’s budgets are 30% more accurate and he can more easily compare actual results in Sage Intacct against the strategic three-year budget plan in Adaptive Insights, analyze emerging business opportunities and risks, and frequently adjust the plan with updated forecasts.
“Before Sage Intacct, we were never as sure that we had complete data available to us, but now, we always feel secure we’ve got everything we need to back up the decision we’re making,” says Safford. “Everyone knows we can drill-down to answer questions on the spot and get the information they need to do their jobs better.”
For more information on how Yerba Buena Center for the Arts uses Sage Intacct, view the full case study.