Late last year, P2 Energy Solutions surveyed US oil and gas companies with revenues under $700 million, asking financial and senior management about industry trends and attitudes. The 115 responses showed four primary ‘back office’ concerns—spreadsheets, real time reporting, workflow automation and training.
Many companies depend on spreadsheets to manage their business, but the approach has disadvantages. Spreadsheets make it hard to enforce auditable controls and their use to manage joint interest billing and AFEs is a ‘difficult and burdensome.’ Using multiple spreadsheets in monthly closures takes too long. Generally, respondents considered that spreadsheets ‘should not be used to run a business.’
77% indicated that the absence of an integrated information system puts actionable, dashboard-level intelligence beyond their reach. For many companies, workflow ‘management’ equates to moving paper around and losing track of information is commonplace. Training new hires in both the business and on software use is increasingly critical. Around 60% of those surveyed thought their accounting systems could be improved and were prepared to invest in technology.
P2ES believes the solution for most all of the above is its business intelligence solutions. These integrate with Excel for analysis and presentation and provide real-time data and key performance indicators. P2ES further advocates using a hosted solution resident in the ‘cloud’ running on dedicated servers. The survey concludes with a shameless plug for P2ES’ Excalibur Online which is claimed to tick all the boxes. More from P2 Energy Solutions.
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