Streamlining Invoicing Process in Oil & Gas Industry: A Case Study of Pinnergy and Actian Business Xchange

Pinnergy is a leader in diversified energy services and one of America’s largest regional independent oilfield service companies. It operates in some of the most active oil and gas regions in Texas and Louisiana. Pinnergy's portfolio of services includes fluid management, drilling, oil and gas waste disposal, and rentals. By offering this combination of services, Pinnergy enables its customers to streamline their processes and operate more efficiently and safely while reducing associated costs. Pinnergy’s customers represent a wide range of large and small oil and gas industry firms, few of which relied on the same accounts payable system.

Pinnergy, a leading diversified energy services company, was facing significant challenges with its manual, double-entry invoicing process. The process was not only tedious but also time-consuming, taking between 30 and 90 days to get an invoice entered into a client’s Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system. The company's customers, which included a wide range of large and small oil and gas industry firms, did not rely on any common back-office system, making electronic invoicing a complex task. As Pinnergy’s business grew, the order management became even more complex with more customers to invoice and higher volumes of transactions to manage. The invoicing process became a bottleneck, resulting in high transaction costs and accounts receivable aging. Pinnergy officials knew that an electronic invoicing solution would dramatically streamline this process, but the challenge was to find a solution that could integrate with the diverse EDI systems of their customers.

Pinnergy turned to Actian and its Business Xchange platform to address its invoicing challenges. Actian Business Xchange is a cloud-based platform that provides B2B connectivity, linking large oil and gas organizations with their customers and suppliers. As a fully-managed B2B integration service, Business Xchange enables trading partners to exchange electronic procurement and supply chain documents regardless of format or enterprise system. This reduces costs, inefficiencies, and friction throughout their electronic trading relationships. The platform supports Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX) standards, making it an ideal solution for Pinnergy and its clients. Pinnergy initially focused on using Business Xchange to deliver its invoices electronically to its top sixteen customers, who represented 80% of Pinnergy’s overall invoicing volume and already relied on PIDX as their common EDI standard. Pinnergy used Actian Business Xchange DataConnect to upload the invoice to the Business Xchange platform, which could then be easily formatted to any customer’s requirements using PIDX standards.

• The implementation of Actian Business Xchange has brought about significant operational improvements for Pinnergy. The automation of the invoicing process has eliminated bottlenecks and rework efforts, improving order-to-cash cycles and customer satisfaction. The platform has also provided Pinnergy’s accounting and credit management staff with greater visibility of the entire order-to-cash process. Reporting is both timelier and more accurate, which helps Pinnergy deliver better customer service. The reduction in errors and disputed invoices has also led to smoother operations and less time spent on resolving disputes. Overall, the solution has enabled Pinnergy to streamline its processes and operate more efficiently.

• Reduced invoice delivery times for onboarded clients by more than 80%
• Reduced the average time to submit invoices for payment, which has reduced Pinnergy’s AR aging by approximately 10 days
• Eliminated manual data entry, reducing Pinnergy’s per-transaction cost