Case Study: The Belgrade Theatre  

The Belgrade Theatre was opened in 1958 by HRH the Duchess of Kent and was the first civic theatre to be built after the war. Since opening they have presented over 800 shows to a total audience of more than 4 million people. Today they are one of the largest regional producing theatres in the country, and they currently operate from two sites – the main theatre is in Coventry city centre, and an alternative general office site lies just outside of the city centre.

The key requirements for the Belgrade Theatre Trust were firstly that they would be able to track the costs of each theatre production, and secondly that the solution would provide strong accountancy and costing capabilities. This prompted their decision to use Access Dimensions.

An additional requirement for them was replace the manual purchase orders and replace this with a web based purchase ordering system that would be available to over 30 users from remote sites. Managers now raise orders electronically, email them to suppliers and this automatically updates the Project Costing modules to give an updated position on each production using the Web POP module developed by Elite. This has reduced both paperwork and also time spent manually keying the orders into the computer.

Jenny Chase, the Head of Finance for the Belgrade Theatre Trust, says how they were searching across the Internet for companies that were suitable to work with charities, when Access Accounts recommended Elite. Their final decision was made to choose Elite because they were a local company that demonstrated they understood their requirements and could make the most complex of processes easier.

Ms Chase says that they are happy with all levels of service provided by Elite and were very impressed with the assessment workshops which confirmed that they had chosen the right product an the right company to implement it.