Accelerating Plant Accounting Processes
The article discusses how legacy plant accounting software, often slow and unreliable, consumes excessive time and resources for midstream companies by forcing lengthy, error-prone allocation and settlement processes that hinder workflow, increase risks of prior period adjustments, and limit opportunities for higher-value work, emphasizing the critical need to accelerate these processes to save time and improve efficiency.
Part 7 - Accelerating Plant Accounting Processes
What is the most precious commodity in the world? Is it oil? Money? One could make a strong argument that the answer is time. We have a limited amount of it, and we cannot make more. Many have experienced how much time is consumed by legacy plant accounting software. Some clients have even had to set alarms in the middle of the night to kick off their allocation or settlement process in their legacy plant accounting software. Legacy solutions force users to structure their workflow, and even their sleeping schedule, around incredibly slow processing times. After hours of waiting for a process to complete, it may fail for various reasons, forcing reruns and further delays. This is frustrating, time-consuming, and costly for midstream companies in terms of employee time and missed opportunities for higher-value work. If it takes hours to run a process, there may not be enough time to validate the results, increasing the risk of prior period adjustments (PPAs).
This blog series has explored the challenges and risks posed by legacy plant accounting software. In this final critique, the focus is on the ways legacy solutions slow users down and how to drastically improve processing times.
Time is Money
Even if a plant only has a couple of hundred meters and a few contracts, running allocations and monthly settlements can be calculation-intensive and time-consuming. Larger plants with thousands of meters and large-scale transactions can have accounting processes that take hours using legacy solutions. The unreliable nature of such software means accountants must closely monitor processes and hope they complete without needing to be rerun.
Legacy plant accounting software was built decades ago, typically installed on a server physically located in a midstream company’s office. Accounting staff accessed the software on PCs attached to the local area network. This setup is inherently limited by the computing power of the hardware, contributing to slow processing times.
Another factor is how the database is architected and accessed. Inefficient SQL queries, lack of partitioning, and a general lack of investment in legacy products drive midstream companies to seek better solutions.
These delays prevent accountants from validating results early and catching issues before statements are sent to producers. Time spent managing legacy software means less time resolving data quality issues, leading to more prior period adjustments. These issues compound, impacting employee time and productivity and creating unnecessary costs for midstream companies.
Run Processes up to 150 Times Faster
Legacy plant accounting software providers often lack the resources to invest in their products, making it difficult to improve processing times without a complete rearchitecture to leverage modern computing technologies. Innovation and significant product improvements are rare with status quo software providers.
W Energy Software’s plant accounting solution was designed from the ground up using the latest technologies. The software is built to be lightning-fast, with features and processes optimized for performance. Settlement and complex allocations can be run in seconds. The software architecture is designed to harness the cloud’s on-demand computing power, with proprietary libraries for high-speed batch computation and a custom batch processing engine that maximizes I/O throughput. The development team regularly discusses performance best practices. As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Select Tier Partner, the software and developers are certified to rigorous standards for leveraging best-in-class cloud technology. In contrast, legacy solutions are limited by older technologies.
Make the Switch
There are several reasons why companies are switching to modern solutions. If you struggle with data transparency, a difficult user experience, on-premise issues, unaffordable upgrades, workarounds, compliance challenges, or slow processes, consider how a new solution could transform your business processes.
For more information or to see W Energy Software in action, reach out to the team.
This is part 7 of the "7 Reasons to Replace Your Legacy Plant Accounting" series.
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