American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2020 - 62

SpecialReport: Geophysics & Computing
undermine its benefits, warns Elizabeth
A. Gerbel, founder, president and CEO
of E.A.G. Services Inc., a consulting firm
that specializes in back-office software.
"Many companies have paid for backoffice software only to walk away from
it," she says. "When people are looking
at software, they usually want an easy
answer, which makes it tempting to imagine that the program with the most compelling demo is exactly what they want
and will solve their problems."
Instead of looking at software as a solution, Gerbel recommends viewing it as
a tool or a means to an end. "Ideally,
companies should think about the information or capabilities they need, then
look for software that supports those
goals," she says.
The selection process must involve
people from every department that will
use the tool, Gerbel advises. "When accounting buys a system and tells the land
department to use that system's land module, the new software rarely goes over
well," she relates. "But when landmen
are involved from the beginning, they

are likely to be less resentful even if their
preference gets overruled as long as the
reasoning makes sense and they feel their
voices were heard."
Implementation Best Practices
Gerbel cautions that people frequently
underestimate the amount of work and
thought required to unlock new software's
benefits. For example, she says many
companies who license business intelligence or data visualization tools initially
assume it will be easy to create custom
reports when they need to see data in
new ways.
"In today's price environment, we are
helping operators create more detailed
reports on lease operating expenses and
track spending so they can identify and
investigate potentially unnecessary costs,"
Gerbel says. "We are also tracking joint
interest payments so they can get more
money in the door by reminding partners
about overdue bills."
These reports often need to draw on
hundreds or millions of data points that
may be spread across several systems,

Gerbel notes. "If we tried to get the data
when the client wanted the report, generating it would take too long," she remarks.
"Instead, we have to schedule data 'pulls'
so they are efficient while refreshing the
data frequently enough that it is useful.
That way, all the client has to worry
about is providing accurate data and looking at the report."
Because reports are only useful if the
data behind them is sound, Gerbel encourages companies to clean data when
implementing new software. "It is not
necessary to have perfect data, but it is a
good idea to consolidate duplicate records
as much as possible," she details. "During
conversion projects, we often find the
same well in multiple systems with different numbers and slightly different
names, which could lead to it being counted several times."
Gerbel suggests verifying that interest
percentages match up across joint interest
billing and revenue systems. She also
stresses that meaningful training is vital
to the success of any implementation
project.

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2020

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