The De Harmonie Municipal Theater in Leeuwarden is going through a period of change that can be summed up in one word: renewal. This summer, the theater itself will undergo a major renovation; in recent years, new management has been appointed, the IT infrastructure has been upgraded, and the financial administration system has been overhauled. “Part of that was the migration of our invoice processing software from the on-premise Easy Invoice to the cloud-based 4CEE Invoice. That was a good move because we can make changes ourselves, and the new system is very user-friendly,” says Eelco Tanghe, finance and control manager at De Harmonie.
While performers take their applause after a show, the unsung heroes of the theater work behind the scenes, often out of the audience’s sight. On the one hand, there are volunteers who run the coat check or guide visitors to their seats; on the other hand, there are the staff members who, among other things, put together the annual artistic program and manage the financial flows.
Eelco Tanghe has been leading that latter group for over three years. “For me, the theater world was a new sector to enter based on my financial background. It’s very dynamic, and there’s always something going on. That makes the work really fun and interesting, even though the cultural sector is constantly financially challenging. At the same time, that presents a wonderful challenge,” he says.
Since Stadsschouwburg De Harmonie—with a capacity of 2,000 attendees, making it one of the five largest theaters in the Netherlands—is in the midst of a renovation phase, Tanghe thought it would be a good idea to upgrade the invoice processing software at the same time. “The on-premises system we were using—running on our local server—had become increasingly bloated,” he explains.
“It kept getting expanded with new features, each time requiring our software vendor, 4CEE, to implement them. Over time, we also granted access to new employees, which meant that at a certain point, it was no longer entirely clear how the processes and responsibilities were interconnected.”
“We can now log in from any laptop, from any location”
Tanghe was therefore immediately interested when, over a year ago, 4CEE proposed converting the on-premises invoice processing software to the cloud (SaaS). “At that time, we were already modernizing our financial administration, including with a new accounting program from Exact Online. So I thought: since we’re already in the process of doing this, now is the right time to completely revamp our invoice processing as well and integrate it with our new accounting program. Of course, it would be convenient if we could log in from any laptop, from any location, going forward.”
And so it was done. The migration process began with planning in advance how orders and incoming invoices should flow most efficiently through both the organization and the financial administration. “We took quite a bit of time for the preparation phase, because once you go live and things aren’t properly set up upfront, everything goes haywire the moment the new system becomes operational.”
One of the components during the preparation phase was mapping out the authorization scheme. “During that process, we answered questions such as: Who should be able to view which invoice at what level? How did we set that up from a budgeting perspective? Who is the budget holder for which expenses, but also: Who verifies that we’ve actually physically received certain orders?”
Although De Harmonie’s financial administration procedures remained virtually unchanged during the migration process, Tanghe and his team did notice that after implementing the cloud-based 4CEE Invoice invoice processing software, certain familiar processes were no longer possible. “At first, we thought 4CEE Invoice would be a sort of enhanced version of Easy Invoice, but it’s an entirely new platform. As a result, we lost the historical data from previous years, which we find quite useful for looking back in certain situations. We then brought this up with 4CEE. They collected feedback from all users and subsequently made adjustments to the software so that we can use our historical data again.”
“Now, if we want to change something, we do it ourselves—it’s that easy.”
That flexibility to customize 4CEE Invoice to the needs of the software’s users aligned with Tanghe’s experience throughout the entire migration process. “The new software looks a bit rigid, but because we were able to quickly implement our desired changes in consultation with 4CEE, we now have the system exactly the way we want it.”
“He adds that the word ‘rigid’ shouldn’t be seen as something negative. “In fact, we found that to be a positive experience, because our colleagues didn’t have to think about anything and could simply follow the modules in the software. It’s simply a streamlined process. And when we did want to make changes, those were regularly resolved quickly and effectively. We’ve been using it for about a year now, and if we want to change something, we can do it ourselves—which is very convenient. In practice, this is very user-friendly because the change management is very clear. Another advantage is that, thanks to the cloud solution, we aren’t dependent on an external party in such situations, which helps us customize the system to our needs more quickly.”
This coming summer, during the quiet period between two theater seasons, the theater will undergo renovations. For Tanghe, this is a time when he plans to implement the other features of 4CEE Invoice: contract management and expense report processing.
“These are modules that I then want to integrate with the invoice processing system, the accounting software, and two other systems: our ticketing system and our scheduling program. My goal is to create the ultimate integrated solution so that we can then take the next step toward generating more standardized management information. Once all that’s done, the renovations will be complete, and we’ll be fully up to date for the new theater season.”