Case Study: Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Baltic) is a leading contemporary art gallery located in Gateshead, England. Baltic was founded in 2002 and is one of the largest contemporary art galleries in Europe. The gallery is dedicated to showcasing the best in contemporary art from around the world, with a wide range of exhibitions, events, and educational programs, and is a major contributor to the local economy.

Located on Gateshead quayside, they have an impressive 2,600 square metres of exhibition space dedicated to the art and artists of today and tomorrow. The gallery is dedicated to creating greater understanding of the world through outstanding, experimental and inspiring contemporary art which has power, relevance and meaning for individuals and communities.

Baltic were using Sage 200 Professional as their finance solution, but the organisation’s needs had outgrown this. The outdated financial system was not able to keep up with the gallery’s growth and provide the insightful reporting and spend management required to maximise donations and continue to work towards their important mission of making contemporary art free for everyone to access and enjoy.

Working with ION’s specialist consultants, they identified that Sage Intacct could provide cloud-based access, as well as automated processes and dimension-based reporting to capture all their requirements. This robust system could help future-proof the organisation taking advantage of efficiencies in financial operations and insights.

Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art had a number of key requirements for their new finance solution, including:

1. Reduce time taken for Management Accounts processing by up to 50% and in some areas up to 75% to increase capacity within the finance team.
2. Reduce and streamline invoice processing time by up to 30%using a paperless authorisation procedure.
3. Improve department Head understanding with dashboard and streamlined future forecasting and cashflow reporting.
4. Provide a more accurate picture of the VAT liabilities with reporting enhancements and minimal excel requirement.

ION was able to implement Sage Intacct in such a way that all these goals could be realised, streamlining Baltic’s financial processes, and improving their overall financial performance. Baltic now has a system in place which enables them, via a wide range of automation features, to achieve time savings and efficiency in management accounts and invoice processing. They have greater visibility of their financial data, with real-time insight and reporting into the performance of their finance function.

Sage Intacct has removed the need for Excel spreadsheets and manual inputs, with the system doing more of the heavy lifting to enable the finance teams to focus on strategic objectives. Baltic now has the necessary financial insights and reporting capabilities needed to make informed decisions and secure future growth – something that is imperative for a non-profit organisation in the current economic climate.

Angela Blades, Baltic Head of Finance, said: “We are so pleased with our decision to move to Sage Intacct and work with ION. ION’s knowledge of the product and their consultancy was a key ingredient in the success of this implementation. This new finance system is already providing us with valuable performance insights, automatically and in real-time, which is going to provide a strong foundation for the strategy of the business moving forwards”.