✶Theaters & Performing Arts
The books behind the box office.
Season budgets, grant tracking, box-office reconciliation, and the cash-flow rhythm of dark weeks and opening nights.
Balance, PLLC provides bookkeeping and accounting for theaters, performance venues, and arts organizations in the Twin Cities: box office and ticketing reconciliation, grant and donation tracking, production and season budgeting, and contractor payments for cast and crew. Clients include the Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul.
Arts organizations run on passion and grant deadlines. The Historic Mounds Theatre came to Balance with months of backlog; Pam introduced an app-based system to tame the paper beast, caught the books up quickly, and now keeps them current through every season. Communication happens by email and messenger, the way working venues actually operate.
✶Theaters & Performing Arts
Behind-the-curtain bookkeeping
Box office reconciliation
Ticketing platforms, comps, season passes, concessions, and rentals each flow differently. Balance reconciles them into one honest revenue picture per production and per season.
Grants and restricted funds
Grant money comes with strings: spend categories, reporting periods, match requirements. Balance tracks restricted funds separately so reports to funders are a print job, not a panic.
Production budgets vs actuals
Every show is its own little business. Class and job tracking shows what each production really cost and earned, which makes next season’s programming decisions sharper.
Cast and crew payments
Stipends, contractor fees, and the 1099s that follow. Balance keeps performer payments documented and filing season painless at $15 per form.
Where most theaters & performing arts start
Growth Bookkeeping
Class and job tracking maps naturally to productions and programs.
See plan →Accounts Payable
Vendors, royalties houses, and rental invoices paid on schedule.
See plan →Fractional CFO
Season planning, cash-flow forecasting through dark months, and board-ready reports.
See plan →Pam is on top of getting our records sorted. We had months of backlog, but she introduced us to a smartphone app solution to tame the paper beast and got through it pretty quickly. She contacts us when we need to have things done, or she has a question, via email and messenger, our preferred ways of communicating!
Jessica Johnson
The Historic Mounds Theatre
✶Good Questions
Theaters & Performing Arts questions
Do you work with nonprofit arts organizations?
Yes. Balance tracks restricted and unrestricted funds, prepares funder-ready financial reports, and coordinates with your tax preparer on Form 990 requirements.
Our books are months behind after a busy season. Can you catch us up?
That is exactly how the Historic Mounds Theatre engagement started. Backlog cleanup is a one-time scoped project, then monthly service keeps the curtain up. Multi-month catch-up is routine work.
Can you track each production separately?
Yes. Class and job tracking in the Growth and Scale bookkeeping tiers gives every production its own P&L: ticket revenue, royalties, sets, costumes, and crew against each show.
We get each other.
Start with a free consultation. Bring the weird stuff, that is the fun part.