RAM arrives at Victoria & Albert Museum

Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), the exhibitor of applied and decorative world arts, has selected RAM’s Fixed Asset Management software to meet its statutory obligations for financial reporting on fixed assets.

The Museum has over 50 galleries with collections from all over the world encompassing fashion, sculpture, ceramics, jewellery and paintings. The new British Galleries are a major attraction at the V&A, consisting of over 3000 exhibits that tell the story of British design and art from 1500-1900.

As a non-departmental body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the museum receives much of its funding from Government grants. As a result, the finance team has to comply with a complex set of reporting requirements and show how funds have been allocated across the asset register. This had previously been managed on a series of spreadsheets but the growth of the asset base and the complexity of the reporting function prompted the finance team to look for an alternative solution.

“We were very concerned about the stability of the spreadsheets,” recalled Justin Avery, financial systems accountant at Victoria & Albert Museum. “The increased level of detail and the intricacy of the calculations had made it difficult for us to rely on the accuracy of the data. In addition, processing data and producing reports had become very time consuming.”

“We recognised the need to put a specialist system in place but wanted a solution that could link to our general ledger,” explained Avery. “Real Asset Management came highly recommended from our Sage Enterprise reseller, CPiO, and its system met with all of our technical criteria. I was particularly impressed with the ease with which we could add journals from RAM’s system to Sage and, unlike others I had seen, it didn't require a huge amount of customisation to fulfill our reporting requirements.” RAM’s solution is being used to manage the museum's fixtures, fittings, display cases, capital works and IT equipment. It also reports on acquisitions for the collection in order to comply with new accounting regulations.

“The process of managing fixed assets has dramatically improved,” said Avery. “We are now able to revalue large groups of assets and easily apportion funds both from the government and commercial sector to the relevant assets. The reporting functionality is a key advantage and allows us to produce accurate data that complies with all of the current government guidelines.”

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