The upstream oil and gas industry faces numerous challenges from cost minimization and regulatory compliance to safety, supply chain management, environmental impact, capital constraints, and digital transformation. Ultimately, these challenges can impact growth, efficiency, and profitability.
With the availability of sophisticated workflow tools, upstream oil and gas companies can save time, drive efficiency, and ultimately improve the bottom line. Take the IFS Energy and Resources – Workflow tool as an example. The web-based, user-friendly tool can transform time consuming, out-of-date manual processes into automated tasks – streamlining day-to-day activities.
In this blog, we’ll explore these challenges and how workflows, particularly tools like IFS Energy and Resources – Workflow, can help overcome them, leading to improved operational efficiency and business success.
6 Key Benefits of Using Workflows in Upstream Oil & Gas
Workflow comes with many bells and whistles, right out of the box, all waiting and ready to help improve your processes.
- Real-Time Integration – Whether you need to integrate with your IFS software, a third-party system, or your document repository, Workflow ensures you have all the data you need in one location, immediately, with no delays.
- Mobile Friendly –In the office or on the go, Workflow can be accessed from almost anywhere, reducing time spent waiting on tasks to get completed.
- Fully Customizable –Workflow enhances your current process to reduce time spent on data entry, research, and obtaining approvals. Your process is our process, just with automation.
- Complete and Accessible Audit Trail – Capture all the details – who, what, when – and easily report on them when audit time rolls around. You can even export all those details with your documents, maintaining an airtight audit packet ready for review.
- Document Management – Gone are the days of scanning and filing. Once a document is uploaded into the system, Workflow saves it at the end of the process for you, in a predefined location, reducing time spent outside of the system on highly manual tasks.
- Reports, Dashboards, KPIs – Always stay in the loop by running a report, viewing a dashboard, or checking KPIs to see where items are in their life cycle, continuously build efficiencies into your process, or quickly reassign work when needed.
Take inspiration from IFS’ library of workflows that come pre-packaged and can be used as frameworks to get you up and running, or see how other customers are using Workflow:
- Material Transfer – Automate interactions from the field through financials with this workflow. Start with requests in the field and track them all the way through to accounting for JIB, depreciation, and overall asset management.
- AP Invoice Management – Swiftly and accurately enter invoices, route for an approval (or two or three) and see the approved invoice ready for payment from accounting, all from one system.
- Vendor Registration – Allow vendors to provide their data to you, including needed documents, and see them ready for payment in accounting, all without having to do any data entry yourself.
- Good Receipt – Like to verify you received what you’re being invoiced for? This workflow keeps track of what was received, as well as where and when, without having to track it down.
- Manual Journal Entry – Journal entries will always be needed, so why not reduce time spent on them? This workflow speeds up approval and posting time for each and every manual journal entry you create.
Workflow can reduce or even eliminate manual tasks, process in a system for you, and streamline your day. Hear from a current customer on the benefits of IFS Energy and Resources – Workflow:
“Before Workflow, we were passing around a lot of paper to get approvals. These documents included vouchers, manual invoices, AFEs, JIB invoices, and more. Then Covid hit and managing this manual process of approving documents proved very difficult. Also, there were instances where an accountant would claim they had given the approver the document, but the approver claimed they didn’t have it. Then, when the document was approved, there was a scanning process that was very labor intensive to get the documents in OnBase, our document repository.
Now, all of these documents are routed digitally for approval and uploaded into Excalibur. In addition, the workflow’s attached files are uploaded into OnBase and a log file shows who approved the document, which eliminates the need to scan documents. This has made approvals very transparent; an approver can’t claim they haven’t received a document when it is in their inbox, and everyone knows where an approval is stuck. Workflow is now critical software for us and accountants use it every day to do their job more efficiently.” – Mike C., upstream oil and gas operating company.
Drive your workflow transformation forward with IFS Energy and Resources:
The IFS Energy and Resources Workflow tool is a powerful solution that can help upstream oil and gas drive operational efficiency. By automating and streamlining processes, workflows can save time, reduce errors, improve compliance, enhance collaboration, and increase visibility.
Contact us today to find out how IFS Energy and Resources – Workflow can transform your business.
