“Tessitura gives you the tool to really understand the why and the how. And as an accountant, I think that’s very important.” 

Serena Phillips explained how Tessitura has hugely improved her work as a staff accountant at Asolo Repertory Theater. She’s drastically streamlined the reconciliation process. More importantly, she understands the source and purpose of each revenue stream. 

Tasha Criss, Chief Financial Officer of Alley Theatre, agrees. “When I was the theatre’s controller, my work was really based in making sure that all the money flows where it needs to go, whether that’s in or out. And Tessitura is my subledger,” she said. “Understanding how Tessitura interacts is really important in understanding how that money flows.”

Teams slash reconciliation time with Tessitura as their subledger 

“It brings me great joy when I match to the penny,” Tasha said. “Tessitura’s reporting helps a lot with that.” At Alley Theatre, Tasha previously spent up to four days completing the end-of-month reconciliation for the theatre’s five accounts. The pre-built reports in Tessitura v16 helped expedite the process, especially for resolving any inconsistencies.

“Sorting those out quickly and easily through the reconciliation helper tool is incredibly helpful,” she explained. “It speeds up the process so we can reconcile every single day.” Now, her monthly bank reconciliation takes only 10 minutes. “That is time that I could very easily apply elsewhere,” Tasha remarked.

Serena Phillips at Asolo Repertory Theatre realized similar improvements. When she first joined the theatre as a staff accountant, reconciling multiple revenue sources was arduous and inefficient. In just months, Serena used Tessitura to reduce 6,000-line entries to 100 lines — a significantly more manageable task

“I consolidated the information so that it’s a lot easier to see where it’s coming from,” Serena explained. “Now we just have the backup for it, instead of every single line with every single donor and every single person. That makes it easier not only for our financial team, but for the operators to see the actual cash flow of operating revenues and expenses. Instead of the three weeks it was taking me to reconcile the bank, it’s taking me a day and a half.”  

Gaining visibility and reducing risk with Tessitura Merchant Services

Merchant Services, Tessitura’s payment processing system built on Adyen technology, provides a clear back-end view of each transaction. That makes it easier for teams to troubleshoot the occasional error or spot fraudulent activity.

“My entire role is to protect our assets. So I’m a big fan of the insights Merchant Services offers us,” Tasha said. “It’s great to be able to trace a transaction through Merchant Services and then trace that back to the transaction in Tessitura, or the lack thereof.”  

And when a transaction raises a red flag, Tessitura’s built-in protections reduce the impact of fraud on their accounts. “Tessitura’s fraud team has been really responsive and helpful in suggesting changes we could implement to better protect ourselves,” Tasha reported. One of those changes was to implement strict 3D Secure authentication. Now, Tasha said, “We get far fewer chargebacks, so we aren’t out the money.

“Using Merchant Services has made a huge difference,” agreed Sarah Sturdivant, CFO at Geffen Playhouse. Sarah and her team trust Merchant Services’ “strong, reliable system and the support behind it” to catch suspicious charges. The reduction in fraudulent transactions saves money and improves peace of mind.

Ready-built reports deliver deeper insights

With Tessitura Analytics, finance teams can evaluate the profitability of productions, events and campaigns. Each report helps them make more informed budgeting and planning decisions .

Andrea Izumi, accounting manager at Broadway Sacramento, appreciates how easily she can access Tessitura’s reports. “Before we were on Tessitura, we had to get reports from an outside company. Now being in Tessitura, we can look at box office reports and analyze and forecast, not just rely on what we’re given.” That access to data is a huge advantage over their previous processes.

At Alley Theatre, Tessitura’s reports enable deeper trend analysis. “Tessitura, especially Analytics, has some amazing tools to give us insights into revenue trends. We use Tessitura in partnership with our accounting software to look at financial insights,” Tasha said. Tessitura’s revenue data complements the expense data in their accounting software. With that fuller picture, she explained, “We can start looking more deeply at the ROI.”

For example, Alley Theatre’s team can confidently answer questions such as: How much does it cost to get people into a seat? What exactly is the profit margin for a fundraising event? Exploring these answers helped the team realize they could track profitability more effectively.

One small adjustment, Tasha shared, “guided how we assess the economic impact of a single production.” By analyzing fee revenue as well as ticket income for each production, they could better assess a production’s potential profit margin — helping them make better-informed decisions during the budgeting process.  “That makes a really big difference,” Tasha explained. “We want to look at things holistically, and Tessitura really allows us to do that.” 

At Geffen Playhouse, Sarah said, “Analytics has made a huge difference to how we report to the board.” Previously, she’d found it challenging to share financial information effectively with people who don’t think in numbers. With Tessitura Analytics, she noted, “We can show things in a way that’s easier for all of us to understand. It really bridges a gap that a lot of finance departments struggle with.”

Data confidence makes audits easier

Tessitura’s built-in analytics are improving Sarah’s pledge reporting. “I used to ask for custom cash flow reports,” she recalled. “Now, with Analytics, I was able to build a quick little dashboard that shows me the balances on all of our restricted individual contributions and how much cash has been received.” 

That transparency also helps answer auditors’ questions easily. For example, if they question Sarah’s confidence in an outstanding pledge, her team can go into Tessitura to look at moves management plans. “I don’t even have to bother the development department,” she said. “I go in, I look at plans, I show the step, I show that the development department talked to them last week, and it’s done.” 

Serena shared another example of being able to address questions during an audit. “If there’s a high deposit — let’s say we had $100,000 come in that day — they’re going to flag that higher level. And I will be able to show them exactly what came in on that day for that $100,000 and how it came in through Tessitura and what accounts it went to.”

One system, shared understanding

Finance teams that embrace Tessitura benefit from more than financial accuracy. Their entire organization operates within the same reality. 

“The most important thing Tessitura does for an organization is unify,” Sarah added. “Having one system together makes it so we can all speak the same language and see the same information.”