I recently read an article written by our friend Joe Kratochvil from Clear Stone Solutions titled, “Stop Letting Your Back Office Applications Run Your Business,” featured in Fuel Marketer News. In the article, Joe describes his experience working with a great fuel marketing operation struggling to overcome a quagmire of data-choke which had been increasing over time as the company continued to grow.
In the case of this company, it became evident to Joe that their back office software platform was inadequate to meet the evolving demands of the increasing complexity of their business. He wrote, “As growing companies expand and their operations become more complex, they require enhanced reporting and analytics capabilities to make vital decisions for their business. The volatility of the market drives the need for real-time business tools capable of delivering information for on the spot decision-making. Typical back office solutions that attempt to address this need offer the seductive mix of being a trusted vendor, the promise of industry knowledge, and a natural desire to solve problems for their clients. The result is often a tangled, ad-hoc sprawl of reactively developed customizations intertwined into the core back office system that inserts frustration into aspects of the business that has nothing to do with accounting.” Although Joe’s main point that enhanced reporting and analytics capabilities are crucial for growing fuel wholesalers is spot-on, his article had a clouded message about the actual role that top-tier back office software should play in achieving these capabilities. It is this point I would like to clarify.
In fuel wholesale, high transaction and product volume create a mountain of challenges for today’s petroleum jobber. As it relates to operational fluency, maintaining error-free transaction data is vital to profitability, making general operations and accounting quite intimately linked. Sophisticated core back office systems can automate many of these complex processes, connecting operations to financials, allowing the modern petroleum marketer to make key operational choices based off of financials-driven information.
Without mentioning their name, in his article, Joe mentioned how an incomplete back office accounting system had created “a murky pool of inconsistent information, a reactive rather than proactive posture, and the continuous erosion of confidence in the entire process.” However, savvy back office software is currently providing the diametric opposite of this description to industry-leading fuel wholesalers. A back office provider of good repute will progressively strive to proactively develop intensely practical customizations that bolster process-assurance in both users and executives alike, creating a lucid grid of accurate and pertinent information for decision-makers.
The developmental flexibility of a software provider to make the software work for the customer (and not the customer for the software) is a telltale reflection of the software company’s dedication to adapting the software to perpetually meet the ever-changing demands of downstream petroleum. As new functionality is added to meet the demands of one company running on the software, the software then becomes more dynamic for every company using it.
As Joe wrote, “Understand what your back office software package is supposed to do for your business.” To be certain, fuel marketers who are eager to grow by way of automation and best-practice implementation must be leery of unctuous back office software providers who promise them the moon and the stars, but only actually offer a contrived, one-size-fits-all business approach which is entirely out of synch with the day-to-day realities of any given marketer’s unique business structure.
However, the truthful clarification of understanding what your back office software package is supposed to do for your business is this: for a modern fuel marketer, a well-designed back office accounting system should streamline business operations, increase process efficiency, and enhance profitability by improving the bottom line performance of the company. To identify a few specifics, real-time reporting and customized alerts should provide executives and key-decision-makers the actionable information they need in timely manner, eBOL functionality to speed up time-to-pay and effectively increase cash-on-hand is a must-have and the software should be able to automatically provide an automated “best-purchase” scenario at the rack.
There is no disagreement that Joe is correct in warning fuel wholesalers about the real pitfalls that inevitably beset companies that do not fully and accurately evaluate how back office accounting software should work to optimize efficiency. However, in addition to the warning, it always behooves a complete consultation to offer a proper solution.
A fuel marketer never wants to find that its operations are enslaved by cookie-cutter software, but when operations are driven by a dynamic back office platform, executives are liberated to focus on growing their company. On no uncertain terms, sturdy back office accounting software intuitively encourages best practices in companies. It functions to draw out an optimum cohesion between complex operational and financial data by providing an organized structure of easily-accessible and actionable information from automated financial processes.
