Silvertip Completions cuts costs in nearly half with a FieldFX integration from Baker Tilly

From day one, our goal at Silvertip Completions has been to automate manual processes that are generally accepted as standard, full-time employee (FTE) driven activities by most oil and gas companies. The implementation of FieldFX, LiquidFrameworks’ mobile field operations management solution, coupled with Baker Tilly’s FieldFX integration with Sage Intacct has been the largest and most successful advancement for Silvertip in that vision.

Oilfield services companies feel the pressure

Most companies, especially oilfield services companies, are constantly under pressure from both internal customers (operations personnel, executives, owners, etc.) and external customers (actual customers and potential customers) to provide more data (significantly more data points tracked than 10 years ago), more timely data (gone are the days of invoices or data provided in weeks) and more efficient data (without additional costs).

No accounting system on the market has an oil and gas friendly front end or a field ticketing and billing system that accommodates the point-in-time detailed data collection needed by most companies, especially oil and gas services companies. Oilfield services companies are no longer providing simple invoices like we were a decade ago. We are expected to provide data that details what happened at every step of the process and track efficiency metrics, process exceptions and resolutions and more.

Without a field operations management system like FieldFX, companies are forced to track data in separate flat file systems such as Microsoft Excel or Access. Meaningful reports must be created by hand, combining the MS Applications data with accounting system data making report creation time consuming, prone to error and difficult to repeat. FieldFX allows us to capture almost every imaginable piece of data recorded at a wellsite. We have eliminated almost all paper from our field personnel.

The missing piece of the puzzle

The next key piece of the puzzle, Baker Tilly’s integration between FieldFX and Sage Intacct allows for seamless, efficient flow of data from operations in the field to the accounting system. This implementation has eliminated the need for one FTE dedicated to this process at a time when resources are significantly constrained due to low oil prices. Now we are reviewing and evaluating data instead of manually entering data. Even when we get back to 100% utilization, we should not have to add any additional FTEs to accommodate field tickets, billing, etc.

Computing costs cut by 50%

We have also eliminated the need for our field engineers and supervisors to carry laptops, using Samsung tablets instead, cutting our computing cost in about half. We have near real-time data without an FTE manually updating Sage Intacct. We know what happened in the field, both good and bad, almost immediately. Our average days-to-invoice has decreased by approximately two days.

We are currently using the data to develop unit level costing to better track profitability by unit and activity (as customers love to change products and processes on the fly). FieldFX and Sage Intacct are both simple, effective yet powerful systems that together have greatly increased our ability to measure our operations, both for ourselves and our customers.

About the author

Kyle Kirk has served in financial leadership roles at oilfield service companies focused on the Permian for most of his career. Before joining Silvertip, Kyle was Chief Financial Officer at Peak Completion Technologies from 2016 to 2017 and from 2012 to 2013, responsible for financial reporting at all levels of management including the Board of Directors. From 2013 to 2016, he was Permian Basin Region Controller at Basic Energy Services. He previously served as Chief Financial Officer at Performance Chemical Company from 2010 to 2012. Kyle holds both a B.B.A. and an M.B.A. from Angelo State University.

About Silvertip Completions

Silvertip Completions is a Midland, Texas-based oilfield services provider, focusing exclusively on providing wireline and pump-down solutions to companies in the Permian Basin, and translating that attention into the safest, fastest, most error-free completion services possible.