Energy Industry Case Story

As part of a larger project to improve timing and quality of reporting, the team was invited by a multinational fuel company to help design and implement a robust and sustainable system that would produce the correct invoice every time, despite the variables which face the petroleum business every day — with different products, contract terms, crude oil prices, currency fluctuations, taxation, density and even temperature changes.

The team, which included database and programming experts, and the client worked together to create the common database of variables from which not only the logistics and price sheets drew, but which automatically generated instant invoices. This simple reorganisation dramatically reduced invoice error and delivery time and ultimately, costs on either side.

The usual invoice generation method utilises a series of spreadsheets that wrestle with a host of factors — various products, contract terms, commodity prices, currency fluctuations and tax points generate spiralling complexity and opportunity for error. A good solution is to move away from spreadsheets, that need to be constantly reinvented, to a database driven system which can more efficiently deal with a complicated matrix of perpetually variable factors.

A team can work alongside the client to construct a robust and sustainable system that can produce the correct invoice on time, every time, despite a multiplicity of variables.

The resulting pricing sheets can be sent out to individual customers, in a timely fashion, as PDFs. These can provide advanced notice, in simple summary form, of how prices are built up. There's no reason they can't be easily understandable, making it possible for customers with limited access to technology and making it more straight forwards for everyone else.
Invoices can then be generated automatically, direct from the delivery logistics system, reducing errors and cutting internal processing costs. Not only that, invoices can be sent via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) — further reducing errors and cutting customers' processing costs.

The final result, connected seamlessly with the main accounting system, can be fast and accurate, no matter how complex the environment.

John Urquhart