Having Always-Current Financial Data Is a Valuable Asset to a Performing Arts Non-Profit

One of the biggest challenges facing a nonprofit organization constantly in fund-raising mode is ensuring the availability of real-time financial information at hand.

"We need to be able to demonstrate, ‘This is our financial need,' " says Connie Silverman, controller of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, MO.

The music and theater center, which only opened last year, after being under construction for four years, uses Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 to provide up-to-date financial data. Silverman was at Convergence 2012 in Houston meeting with other users.

"I'm trying to avoid that phone call at 4 p.m. on a Friday" from a potential funding source seeking the last financial information.

She has been working hard to enable others in her small organization of 25 people to utilize the up-to-the minute financial data Dynamics GP spins off. "I want to create real-time dashboards they can manipulate."

But bringing new users on board to use Dynamics GP isn't always a simple matter for the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. "I am a big supporter of controls," says Silverman. She appreciates that GP "provides double checks on batch control...And not everyone has the same access." The different levels of access requires some getting used to by employees. The Kauffman Center tries to provide its own training, and in certain situations relies on its partner, NetStandard Managing Technology.  

Her organization may be a candidate sooner than expected for the newly introduced Dynamics GP 2013, Silverman said. "We are already using a hosted solution, so we're already half-way there," she noted. "I like the simplification." The new version "would eliminate ...