RockWell Petroleum produces oil categorized as non-recoverable by other industry participants. The core of their business involves developing old, depleted oil fields using certain proprietary techniques developed by a team of skilled professionals. RockWell is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta and in Sheridan, Wyoming with operations throughout the United States and Canada.
Need for improved reporting capabilities
Access to the right information is very important to a rapidly growing business as RockWell with operations throughout the United States and Canada. Their accounting needs were met by Microsoft Dynamics AX, but with a still increasing need of correct and timely data, they needed an effective, yet easy-to-use reporting tool.
To solve their reporting problem, they purchased the Microsoft FRx but found it very difficult to install because it did not fit into their system. And when they finally had it installed, they quickly noticed the tool’s inadequacy for their needs: “When we rolled it out, we discovered that the back-end reporting tool that pulls data into AX could not export the reports to Excel. Furthermore, it was very slow to work with - it took us about 45 minutes to generate a report in FRx because it takes the data from the database and converts it to a Crystal report database.” the General Manager of IT Bob Lange tells. There is no doubt that the general conclusion from RockWell is that they really needed a better reporting tool.
TARGIT was the solution to RockWell’s reporting challenge
The turning point in RockWell’s search for a solution to fit their need is very clear to Bob Lange: “I remember a class situation, where an accountant was running a static report in FRx and he complained about it being too slow to work with. The accountant next to him who was using TARGIT said that he could build the report much faster – and he actually builds the static report from scratch and before the FRx report had even finished fetching the data, the report is up and running in TARGIT. Now the accountant only uses TARGIT as his choice of reporting tool”.
Today, RockWell has 20-25 employees using TARGIT, mostly managers and accountants. TARGIT was chosen for three primary reasons: its ease of implementation, its speed of implementation and its ease of use: “I really like TARGIT because it is so easy to use that even our non-technical employees can use it. And I do not have to train them”, says Bob Lange.
Reliable and timely data with TARGIT
RockWell uses TARGIT primarily in the Financial Department, where it has made the operations more streamlined. They have 7 separate entities, and they need to consolidate them all; US first, and then Canada. “TARGIT helps us to speed up the process. Prior to TARGIT, we needed to consolidate everything manually one at a time, but with TARGIT, we can see it all at once – and the operations employees are happy”, states Controller Shelina Hirji. “I like what I see in TARGIT. It looks very professional”.
“We really need to be able to rely on our data, and we feel that TARGIT provides just that: reliable data that we can make use of in order to do more analytical work. We never had reliable data before, but with TARGIT, we have a clear and timely view of our data. Over time, we are going to be using trend analysis on several areas throughout the organization, and we hope and think that TARGIT will save our company great amounts of money.” concludes Bob Lange.
