The oil and gas industry, especially the upstream segment of the sector, is a complex one with many moving parts. From search and exploration to the drilling and extraction phases, and finally, to the transportation and sale of the commodity, there are countless different factors that need to be taken into account in order to ensure a profit.

This can make managing the finances of a company in this industry a challenge. That’s why it’s important to have accounting software and enterprise asset management systems designed to meet the specific needs of oil and gas businesses in this segment.

What are the must-have features that such software should have? What should you look for when choosing oil and gas accounting software for your business?

Well, here are five of the most important ones:

1. Automated Financial Management

Manual financial management is simply not an option in the fast-paced world of oil and gas. You need accounting software that can automate as much of the accounting function as possible to help your finance team stay on top of things.

To illustrate, a tried and trusted financial management system such as SunSystems can:

• Import bank statements and automatically reconcile them against your cash book
• Automate depreciation of assets via multiple depreciation methods
• Automate the apportionment of costs and income across accounts and periods via definable rules
• Generate a payment run and automatically allocate against invoices
• Automatically schedule reports and trigger reports based on a set of criteria, e.g. if an account reaches 90 days without payment
• Automate the upload of static data, such as currency rates or account details, from another system
• Upload transactions automatically from another source, including Excel or a front-of-house system

By automating as many of these financial management processes as possible, the rates of error can be greatly reduced, and your finance department’s time freed up to focus on more strategic, value-added tasks such as analysing the performance of your oil company.

2. Dynamic Reporting

To make sound business decisions, you need to have access to accurate and up-to-date financial reports. The best accounting software for oil and gas companies will offer dynamic reporting features so that you can quickly and easily generate the reports you need.

For instance, SunSystems allows you to generate insightful real-time reports with reliable data from all your locations. This means getting your hands on powerful reports that provide up-to-the-minute insights into your oil firm’s financial performance.

This innovative FMS also comes with the ability to create or update reports based on various analysis dimensions such as cost centres, projects, employees, locations, funds, or products. The reporting tool can send you proactive alerts when certain conditions are met, such as when a transaction exceeds a certain amount or when your energy company’s inventory levels are low.

The system’s in-context analytics and business intelligence tools allow you to drill down into data, identify trends, and gain actionable insights that can complement core reporting data for your organisation and help you make better decisions.

3. Seamless Integration

Given the complex nature of the oil and gas industry, it’s essential that your accounting software integrates seamlessly with other systems and software applications that you use, such as:

• Asset management system (EAM)
• Point of sale (POS) systems
• Human resources (HR) systems
• Payroll systems
• Accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) systems
• Banking systems
• Procurement systems

This allows you to share data across multiple systems and eliminate the need for manual data entry and re-keying of information.

With a system like the Sun accounting software, you’ll be able to import and export both transactional data (e.g. invoices) and static data (e.g. suppliers, customers, etc.), automatically transform and translate data into the required format and even upload Excel for ad-hoc imports.

It also allows you to connect your essential business operations together and get a bird’s eye view of all your data in a single, centralised place — even if it originates from other systems — thereby eliminating silos and saving you time.

4. Multi-Company/Multi-Currency/Multi-Location Setup

As your oil and gas business expands, you’ll need an accounting system that packs a multi-company, multi-currency, and multi-location setup.

This is important because it allows you to:

• Effectively manage your finances across multiple entities from a centralised location
• Easily consolidate financial reports from various companies, currencies, and/or locations
• Streamline transactions in multiple currencies.

To give you an idea, SunSystems is used by some of the world’s largest oil companies and boasts the following functionality:

• Multi-company: SunSystems’ multi-company functionality allows you to maintain an unlimited number of companies across multiple locations and manage complex business changes, updates, and international financial requirements.
• Multi-currency: The multi-currency setup supports multiple exchange rates and up to five currencies per transaction, making it easy for you to keep track of your finances across multiple entities.
• Multi-language: The system is available in multiple languages and addresses multiple reporting regimes. It also packs compliance with multiple regulatory and reporting requirements, including localised support for regional reporting regulations.

5. Budgeting and Forecasting with Spend Control

In order to manage your finances effectively, you need to be able to budget and forecast accurately. The best accounting software for oil and gas companies will offer reliable budgeting and forecasting features, as well as spend control capability to help you keep track of your expenditures.

A good example is Sun accounting software. It is able to:

• Streamline the collection of budgeting, forecasting, and planning data from stakeholders and other operational systems.
• Hold original budgets, revised budgets, forecasts, commitments, KPIs, etc.
• Budget at the same level you record transactional data, e.g. project, employee, cost centre
• Produce a consolidated financial view of your organisation
• Automate the inter-company elimination process
• Translate data that use different accounting methods into the same accounting treatment
• Automate currency translations

With this, you can make informed decisions about where to allocate your resources and how to best manage your finances.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for accounting software for your oil and gas company, make sure that it has all of the above features. This will help to ensure that your finances are managed effectively and efficiently.

SunSystems is a powerful yet easy-to-use accounting software that ticks all the boxes and more. If you’d like to take a look at the software, we can arrange for a free demo for you today. Otherwise, you can book a free consultation call directly into our calendar, and our team of experts will talk to you concerning your accounting system.

Book a free Oil & Gas consultation call

With decades of experience in the oil and gas sector, our team is ready to take on your Oil & Gas Asset Management needs. We understand the challenges of your industry and are ready to help you overcome them.

To get started, schedule a free consultation call today to see how we can help you.