Art in Action Nonprofit Streamlines Operations

Art in Action Drives Greater Visibility and Speed With Customised Nonprofit Accounting Functions

Art in Action is a nonprofit organisation that offers art curriculum, course materials and training to schools across the U.S. with the goal of developing creativity in the next generation of students. Packages can be purchased by schools, parent volunteers or even corporations wishing to sponsor art curriculum. The organisation was founded in 1982 by Judy Sleeth in response to the lack of art curriculum in Bay Area schools.

COMPANY

Art in Action

LOCATION

Menlo Park, Calif.

INDUSTRY

Nonprofit

EMPLOYEES

Under 25

NUMBER OF USERS

SYSTEM REPLACED

MYOB

NETSUITE PRODUCT IMPLEMENTED

NetSuite

“In the nonprofit world, you have to perform allocation by grants and job-cost the entire organisation. Now we can do that in one location with a click of a button, which allows us to focus on expanding our reach.” Christian Edoria, VP of Operations and Finance, Art in Action

Bringing Art to All Children

Initial diagnosis finds process gaps: Christian Edoria, currently the Director of Operations and Finance, was originally brought in on a contract basis to oversee bookkeeping and financial reporting. He quickly identified several back-end processes that needed improvement, including the ability to perform allocation accounting, create efficient member reporting and generate financials that mirrored audited statements for tax purposes.

Growth goals call for robust capabilities: Art in Action executives had set a goal of reaching 200,000 children through their art programs while also measuring the efficacy of those programs. With the existing accounting software, it took upwards of two weeks from the order date to package shipment, and measuring program efficacy required countless hours of exporting data to spreadsheets for manual manipulation.

Industry-specific accounting streamlines workflows: Implementing NetSuite enabled Art in Action to perform automated (rather than manual) allocation accounting, which delivered a host of benefits: inventory and funding visibility, transparency in tax reporting for donors, faster art package shipments and easy measurement of program efficacy. Art in Action received a donation of the NetSuite software through the Oracle NetSuite Social Impact program and has accelerated their workflows and streamlined their operations through many Suite Pro Bono activities including two Buildathon 4Good events and at the annual Hackathon 4Good at SuiteWorld. Art in Action learned many solutions with skilled NetSuite users at these events which have saved them many hours a week in administrative work.

Process improvements enable future growth: Art package orders now ship in 48 hours, and the books close 10-15 days earlier than before. Program efficacy reporting only requires an allocation percentage in NetSuite to calculate. With all that extra time freed up, Art in Action is planning to integrate NetSuite with both Salesforce.com and ADP to drive even more efficiency.

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