At a Glance

Arts organisations must balance creativity with financial control. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central simplifies project budgeting, forecasting, and reporting by linking costs, grants, and funding streams in one platform. With Brookland Solutions, arts and entertainment teams gain real-time insights, transparency, and compliance to manage budgets and resources confidently.

Budgeting in the Arts Sector

Creativity is central to any arts and entertainment project, whether it’s a gallery exhibition, theatre performance, or a cultural initiative for the community. But like any other business, well-managed finances fuel this creative process and generate the desired outcomes.

Organisations in the arts and entertainment sectors often struggle to strike the right balance between achieving artistic objectives and managing and sourcing finances through funding, grants, or revenue streams.

This is where Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can help. In this guide, learn how you can use Business Central’s budgeting tools to manage your arts business more efficiently.

Start Project Budgeting in Business Central

Business Central allows you to create and manage project budgets directly within its centralised ERP system. This not only eases the complicated and taxing process of creating project budgets, but also makes it easier to connect your financial data with your project’s goals.

By using Business Central for creating budgets, your finance and production teams can:

  • Create individual budgets for each project, such as an event, production, or exhibition.
  • Assign funding into separate categories, such as artist fees, materials, venue hire, marketing, and travel expenses.
  • Link the budget to the relevant sources of funding, including ticket sales, sponsorships, and grants.
  • Track expenses against budget allocation, supporting transparency and accountability.

If you’re a theatre production house running three shows at once, managing and tracking budgets through spreadsheets can quickly become challenging. However, when you use Business Central to create budgets, you can clearly track project costs and see whether a production is over budget on stage design or underspending its marketing allocation.

How to Set up and Manage a Project Budget in BC

Dynamics 365 Business Central offers flexible setup options, making it easy to cater to the different needs of different art projects.

Budget Templates

You don’t need to create a complete structure for your arts business. Just use the ready-made templates to get started. This can save you a lot of time, particularly for recurring programmes like annual festivals and exhibitions.

Cost Centres

For better cost management, your teams can assign costs to specific areas. For example, you can segment them under “performances” and “outreach” to understand where exactly the money is going.

Dimensions

Use “dimensions”, which are custom tracking tags, to classify your data by department, funder, or type of cost. This feature is ideal for art and entertainment organisations to track project costs with mixed funding streams.

Multi-Currency Support

With multi-currency functionality, your organisation can collaborate with international projects or cross-border grants.

Forecasting and Tracking Features

Creating a budget in Business Central is the first step; the next is making the most of the forecasting and tracking features. BC supports real-time forecasting and tracking, so you know when to make changes when expenses shift or funding schedules change.

Budget Forecasting

  • Your teams can use live expenditure data to generate budget forecasts.
  • Use historical data to predict future cash flows, resources, and more.
  • You can adjust projections when any funding or project scope changes.

Budget Tracking and Reporting

  • Use visual dashboards to monitor budgets versus actuals.
  • Automated alerts help in identifying and flagging any cost overruns early.
  • Generate accurate financial reports for your organisation’s trustees, founders, or the Arts Council.

Sector Challenges and ERP Opportunities for Arts Organisations

Like any other industry, the arts and entertainment sector has its own share of challenges. Some common hurdles include:

  • Using separate platforms for CRM, finance, and ticketing.
  • Grants with unique reporting needs.
  • Heavy dependence on public or philanthropic support.
  • Manual reporting and analysis processes.

Integrating an ERP like Business Central can help your organisation overcome these hurdles. BC unifies your operational, financial, and project data and can be customised to ensure you meet grant reporting requirements, create audit-ready reports, and help your management team make decisions based on real-time data.

Integrate Systems with Brookland Solutions as your Implementation Partner

Introducing Business Central to your organisation is not only about integrating an ERP, but creating a system that combines managing finances, tracking project progress, forecasting budgets, and creating compliant reports for businesses in the UK’s arts and entertainment industry.

However, a successful ERP implementation depends on having the right Microsoft ERP implementation partner. Brookland Solutions specialises in working with UK SMEs from all spheres of business, including the cultural, arts, and entertainment sectors, helping them make the most out of their Dynamics 365 Business Central subscription.

Here’s how our services can support your business:

  • Connect Business Central with your existing ticketing, CRM, or finance tools.
  • Modify workflows, dashboards, and reporting to sync with your organisation’s operations.
  • Train your finance and project teams to manage budgets confidently and independently.
  • Make smarter use of funding and grants.

Ready to create and manage budgets in Business Central? Fill out our contact form to learn more.