The Future of Oil & Gas: How a Field-to-Finance Platform Drives Profitability

For years, oil and gas organizations have endured disparate systems across their field, land, and accounting teams. Many processes were intensely manual, often requiring data re-entry that demanded a significant amount of time from field operators. Not only were these processes tedious and time-consuming, but they were also highly error prone. One “fat finger” mistake could lead to a cascade of implications for finance and beyond. 

These days, while some workflows remain manual, more and more oil and gas companies are looking for a unified field-to-finance platform from a single provider. Let’s take a closer look at what these platforms entail, and why they’re so beneficial for oil and gas organizations. 

What is a field-to-finance platform?

A field-to-finance platform is exactly what it sounds like: an integrated system that connects production volumes and field operations with back-office accounting data and land data.

What’s not as straightforward is the definition of a “platform.” Many software vendors that claim to provide holistic field-to-finance platforms have just stitched together different point products through manual integrations and configurations, or duct tape and bailing wire. This kind of works… it does enable the data to flow between systems without requiring employee time and resources to rekey it. But the user interface is usually clunky and unintuitive, which still slows down operations, and the integrations and updates can be prone to issues if something changes on either side of the integration. Some vendors have multiple options for each point solution, so that when a customer’s business grows or changes, and a point solution needs to change, a whole re-implementation is required, including the time, money and effort to implement a new solution.

Similarly, larger organizations with well-resourced IT teams tend to buy “best-in-class” products for each module (field, land, accounting) and internally integrate them. This approach does, of course, deliver great functionality. But it also requires a serious upfront time and money commitment, as well as the ongoing maintenance of multiple discrete systems that have been hooked into one data flow. 

A true field-to-finance platform, like W Energy, easily integrates these various components. It requires no manual integrations and looks, feels, and acts like a single system from the mobile app in the field to the user interface in the back office. It doesn’t require “care and feeding” – it simply works. 

What are the top four benefits of a field-to-finance platform?

There are several advantages of a field-to-finance platform but here are the top four.

1. More efficient use of labor resources
   An integrated platform gives hours back to lease operators every day. This is particularly important in today’s challenging labor climate, where the cost and difficulty of finding labor are high. Lease operators have less manual, monotonous work, which improves job satisfaction, and more can be accomplished with fewer employees.   
2. Improved data accuracy
   Because data isn’t being re-entered by people, the human error factor goes down dramatically. Clean data streamlines all the processes downstream from production volume collection, so there are fewer issues and delays on the accounting side. 
3. Powerful, real-time reporting
   Field-to-finance platforms really shine through their analytics and reporting capabilities. They can automatically create lease operating statements, for instance, eliminating the need to make them manually. There is no lag time for reporting either, because the data is always there. 
4. Faster, more informed decision making
   With real-time data at your fingertips, you can catch mistakes or problems sooner. You can find out if you’re over budget, for example, before the end of the month and adjust accordingly. If you’ve gone upside down on the economics of a well, it’s far better to know that sooner rather than later so you can take the appropriate actions. 

At the highest level, a unified field-to-finance platform gives you the visibility you need to run your business. When you bring together the field, land, and finance user experience, you can see and understand who owns each well, how revenue and expenses split, how much you’re going to profit on a well versus pay out, and much more. 

The W Energy field-to-finance platform

W Energy is the only field-to-finance platform that is purpose-built for upstream and midstream energy companies. Our comprehensive platform unites field and finance – and soon land and midstream processes – into a cohesive system that’s both robust and easy to use. With W Energy, you get the benefit of a platform created with the needs of oil and gas companies in mind, not a standard ERP that needs to be endlessly (and expensively) customized for your business. And with a full feature set that smaller platforms can’t match, W Energy can easily grow and scale with your organization.

If you’re ready to talk to a team member about a tailored software demonstration, please request a demo here.