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Pandell’s Automated Invoice-to-Pay Vendor Portal Software Solution Sees More than 200% Market Growth in Canadian Oil & Gas Sector Over 3 Years

Upstream Energy Operators and Field Service Companies Have Rapidly Adopted Pandell’s Vendor Invoicing Software with its Online Billing Portal and Direct-from-Source Data Validation

The number of energy service companies subscribing to Pandell’s cloud-based vendor portal software, Pandell VP, has surged 218% over the last three years, with more than 5,200 registered service companies now in the Pandell VP Supplier Network. Meanwhile, usage by oil and gas operators increased 179% over the same period via integration with their Pandell AP accounts payable automation and Pandell JV financial management systems. These high growth rates are attributed to Pandell delivering a powerful invoice-to-pay workflow solution that transforms slow, inefficient communication between field services and operators into a lightning-fast digital highway that improves day-to-day efficiency for both parties.

A few years ago, when oil prices were at their lowest in history, everyone was trying to do the same thing – cut operating costs. While across the energy sector, paper invoice processing was bogging down resources. Slow and error prone, the process forced payables teams to spend hours manually routing, approving, and reconciling invoices each month.

Pandell was already an established provider of scalable, web-based accounting solutions for Canadian oil and gas and had both the technology and expertise to create digital workflows. This presented an opportunity to extend automation features from Pandell AP software directly to the supply chain. Pandell’s Director of Financial Products, Kathy Dodds, explains, “By digitizing invoice workflow between operators and their suppliers and extending comprehensive master data validation and automation functions from Pandell AP and Pandell JV into the process, communication could be centralized, and operators could eliminate most of their manual work.”

This concept became Pandell's digital invoicing solution; a seamless, collaborative web platform for vendors and operators to communicate and track invoices in real-time. The combined VP-AP-JV solution introduced key benefits only available through advanced data integration on a single, unified platform.

• Direct-From-Source Data Validation. Pandell VP validates vendor invoices against master data held in the operator’s financial system. This verifies accounting codes, contract pricing, payment terms, and project spend allowances, prior to routing invoices through configurable approval workflows. Early detection of discrepancies enables vendors to respond immediately, accelerate the approval process, and avoid unnecessary delays of payment.
• Real-time Invoice Status Transparency. Pandell VP enables vendors to track the status of their invoices anytime during the approval process. This eliminates the need for inquiry calls and emails to operators while at the same time giving vendors a quick and easy way to check in.
• Paperless Processing with No Cost to Vendors. End-to-end digital workflow enabled by the Pandell VP-AP-JV digital invoicing solution ensures the entire invoice-to-pay process is paperless for both vendors and operators. Vendors never pay to submit invoices, making it the most cost-effective invoicing solution available to them.

Today, with 70% of Canadian producers using Pandell software products, the adoption rate of its VP-AP-JV digital invoicing solution is expected to remain on a strong and steady climb.

“I’ve worked with a lot of different systems and this one is bar none the easiest to use on every side. The flow is fantastic, our vendors love it, and we love it.”
– Intermediate A/P Accountant at a mid-sized Canadian E&P company