Caldwell Theatre Company
Professional Theatre Dramatically Reduces Software Maintenance Expense

Peachtree® & Access® Take Center Stage for Caldwell Theatre Company

In December 1975, Caldwell Theatre Company gave its first performance in the small "cafetorium" on the campus of the College of Boca Raton (now Lynn University). In four years, the Caldwell built an audience of 3,000 subscribers and won the first of its 65 Carbonell Awards (South Florida's Tony equivalent) for theatrical excellence. Now in its 28th season, Caldwell Theatre Company produces four major productions during the Fall/Winter season from a larger venue in northern Boca Raton.

Overseeing the accounting department for much of the company's growth has been a huge responsibility for Controller Helen Mavromatis. "When we finally took our accounting on-line in 1988, we purchased Open Systems Accounting Software," she said. In 1999, when the 11-year-old DOS-based PC and Lantastic network began to fail, Mavromatis knew it was time to look for a replacement.

"The biggest reason I knew we needed to switch vendors was because of rising software maintenance costs," said Mavromatis. "Open Systems and several of the other big accounting packages often cost thousands of dollars a year just for the access to the updates and phone support. And this does not include the cost of professional installation and troubleshooting." Mavromatris estimates that the new Peachtree system will save Caldwell approximately $2,000 per year in maintenance fees.

A stickler for detail, Mavromatis interviewed several vendors before deciding on Abaca.net. "I felt that Elizabeth Way's strong accounting background would be a plus, and the fact that her company also had programmers was an added bonus," said Mavromatris.

Abaca got started using the same chart of accounts from the old system. "What was wonderful about working with Helen was that she knew exactly what she wanted; she already had the report print-outs," said Way. "It was a challenge to program the detailed financial statement with its very specific subtotals, but, in the end, we were able to recreate it in Peachtree Complete® Accounting.

Access Database Performs

Since the theatre invested in a MS Windows NT network with 16 workstations, it was also time to update the subscription database. Eve Pizon of Abaca was called in to update the old Q&A subscription database. Pizon worked extensively with Becky Schultz, Box Office & Subscription Manager, to build the new system. "Our new Access Database does everything I need; it's much more powerful than our old system," said Schultz. She uses Access to track ticket sales, special group sales, subscriptions, and donations. By linking the database to Word, she also produces labels, cards and other marketing materials. "Eve taught me how to do my own queries," said Shultz. "It's a very powerful marketing tool."

Business Profile

Headquarters:
Boca Raton, FL

Type of Business:
Professional Theatre

Number of Employees:
100

Annual Budget:
$2.4 million


System Profile

Computer System:
PC Compatibles

Operating System:
Windows NT & XP

Software Products:
Peachtree Complete® Accounting
MS Office