Our clients’ success is important to us
We’re proud to be of service to our customers as they strive for increased productivity and profitability. Read more about their successes below:
- Evans Oil Company
- Stallings Brothers Holdings Inc.
- United Oil of the Carolinas
- ESTEPP Energy
- Quality Petroleum
Founded in 1966, Evans Oil Company is based in Monroe, Louisiana. They operate over one hundred sites primarily in Louisiana and have sold a variety of wholesale petroleum brands including Fina, Citgo and Chevron/Texaco.
The Challenge:
In the beginning, Evans Oil Company took care of all their financial and accounting needs manually for approximately 20 locations. However, as the company grew, this was no longer possible. They needed a cost-effective solution to manage their finances and operations more efficiently without increasing their staff. In addition, they wanted the ability to quickly scale up their company’s processes as they continued to grow.
The Solution:
Evans Oil Company learned of AIMS by word-of-mouth and contacted them to learn more about AIMS’ proprietary wholesale petroleum distribution accounting software, COMPAS. Impressed by the software’s ability to automate and process data, reduce errors and create timely financial reports, they knew they’d found their solution and quickly adopted it.
By partnering with AIMS, Evans Oil quickly realized the benefits of the robust COMPAS software. Not only were they able to reduce their overhead and labor force, they were able to position themselves to scale up quickly as they grew. For example, COMPAS enabled them to effectively manage doubling their locations overnight after an acquisition. Also, according to Evans Oil Controller, James Connor, Evans was able to grow by 25 percent without hiring any additional staff after implementing COMPAS.
In addition, AIMS created the first module for automating the credit card reconciliation process in the industry for Evans. This helped Evans save large amounts of time and money. This reconciliation module continues to be a bestseller.
Lastly, Evans worked with AIMS programmers to develop AutoSend. AIMS continues to offer AutoSend to the wholesale petroleum distributor industry.
Without the COMPAS system that we have in place, it would probably take 25 people eight hours a day to keep up and implementing the system was really easy. If a marketer is not satisfied with their present system, they need to look at AIMS. Change is always hard and there is a learning curve, but the payoff is worth it.” – Controller, James Connor.
Stallings Brothers Holdings Inc is a company that wears many hats while doing business in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
First and foremost, they’re a fuel distributor. They offer a range of products including Cam2 Racing fuel, they’re the Sunoco racing fuels distributors, for area race tracks. Their fuel distribution arm operates a 20 truck fleet and employs 18 drivers. Secondly, they own and operate six convenience stores with 35 employees. Thirdly, they also own a hauling/freight transport company, Stallings Brothers, Inc, which serves about 450 customers. This branch also operates home delivery of LP gas and heating oil to a customer base of 3,000. Lastly, they run a truck repair shop out of Middlesex, North Carolina.
The Challenge:
By the mid-1990s, Stallings Brothers had hit a business plateau of three drivers and three trucks. In response, owner, Jeff Stallings, realigned their goals and strategy to aggressively pursue growth. During this process, they quickly uncovered what was hindering their growth, which included the way they were managing their finances and accounting. He hired Office Manager, Kathy Pitts, to find a solution. That’s when she brought AIMS to the table.
The Solution:
AIMS’ accounting software, COMPAS, enabled the Stallings Brothers to continually add customers and grow in time with their vision. It also enabled them to own and operate their truck repair shop employing a full-time foreman and some mechanics with only minimal staff increases. In addition, the ability to customize COMPAS to meet their unique operational needs helped them achieve more efficiency. In 2012, Stallings transitioned to COMPAS Commander to further increase their company’s performance. Overall, AIMS’ software has improved their bottom line.
“I looked at several different accounting programs and I even checked into having someone write our own. All of them, except for AIMS. would have required us to make double entries into the G/L. After Commander, we had very few errors and were able to track any and all things in our office, including our stations’ sales.” – Office Manager, Kathy Pitts
Established in 1934, United Oil is located in Gastonia, North Carolina.
They’re a wholesale petroleum operation serving more than 120 dealer sites. They continue to market Amoco, along with BP, Chevron, Exxon, Phillips, Pure and Shell. In addition, they also operate a small petroleum repair business.
The Challenge:
United Oil was managing their fuel inventory tasks and billing manually. They were sending employees in person to read meters and writing all their bills by hand. In addition, their dispatcher had to determine the fuel needs of their customers using their manual system. Also, United Oil’s monthly monitoring and leak detection were done by tank-testing and manual inventory reconciliation. These laborious tasks had a significant impact on the company’s finances and labor hours. They knew there had to be a better way that would save them time and money.
The Solution:
United Oil discovered and implemented AIMS petroleum accounting software, COMPAS, which allowed them to efficiently collect their data while consolidating it into their inventory, billing and dispatch functions. When the company purchased another jobber operation in 2002, they grew by 50% overnight.
Without COMPAS, the company would have been unable to process the related data. AIMS’ Credit Card Process Automation module saved up to 8 hours per week and the BOL import module saved another 15 hours, while simultaneously decreasing the turnaround time for customer invoices. Even more remarkable, United Oil significantly reduced their inventory costs by using COMPAS. These recuperated costs actually paid for the new automated software the very first year they implemented it. In 2016, United Oil transitioned to COMPAS Commander to further increase their company’s performance.
“I feel that our company is setting the foundation for rapid growth by getting our systems fully automated. We get our problems resolved quickly with AIMS. We can propose new ways of thinking about our data and AIMS always tries to accommodate us. AIMS is trying to help the jobber community think of their back-office data in ways that can make it an asset and harness the data to empower employees to perform more in less time. AIMS can tailor a solution just in those areas that you feel you need improvement, or they can offer a completely integrated solution like ours that incorporates inventory, billing, leak detection, and automation solutions.” – President, Lewis Efird
Estepp Energy LLC is a Shell oil gasoline and diesel fuel wholesale distributor.
They’re a locally owned, family business, that has deep roots in central Kentucky and a long history with both wholesale and retail sides of the business. ESTEPP Energy bought out an existing wholesaler, Cole Oil, in December 2012.
The Challenge:
Though Cole was a well run operation prior to the acquisition, their accounting process contained numerous redundancies and multiple checks, double checks, and triple checks were eating up a lot of time. It was clear that this operation needed some kind of back office system, or software system to support importing features and functionality to recoup time and money that was being wasted on manual accounting tasks.
They first tried using Quickbooks to track and maintain their financial records, which it did well. However, it wasn’t able to handle other jobbership accounting intricacies such as invoicing very well. Since QuickBooks isn’t specific to wholesale petroleum distribution accounting needs, ESTEPP still had to do a lot of work both inside and outside to meet their financial needs. QuickBooks, though better than what they had before, still wasn’t saving them anymore time.
After using QuickBooks for only four months, ESTEPP knew they had to find something that could combine and automate their accounting needs to avoid doing the same work twice. Their primary software needs were twofold. They needed the ability to directly import credit cards and to handle the new rewards that most of the majors were (and still are) offering in the Shell Rewards program. Though the fuel rewards network was a relatively new program, at the time, it played an important role in their company’s strategic vision. Their plan was to implement the rewards program at all of their locations and sites. They knew that processing all of this data would be paramount and that their software provider had to be able to provide this functionality.
They knew there had to be a solution so they asked their colleagues and friends for recommendations and ended up collecting several accounting software company names. ESTEPP took the time to research each company to find the best fit.
The Solution:
ESTEPP selected AIMS’ COMPAS Commander accounting software, due to the company’s great reputation in the marketplace. Since loyalty programs can be tricky because some sites issue rewards whereas other sites redeem them, it’s important for users to have an easy way to track this since it’s a huge task. Commander was able to offer a rewards program that was a simple turnkey approach enabling users to process it like a credit card since it distributes the credits and debits out of the customers as needed.
“Commander has taken my time from invoice processing, and quotation, and cut it in half, at least. Not only has it cut my time in half, but I also don’t make as many mistakes. It’s much more error-proof. In this business, the margins are slim, and you can’t afford a mistake. Mistakes cost you profit instantly.” – CFO, Wes Rowe
Founded in 1971, Quality Petroleum, Inc. has been serving the petroleum industry in the Central Florida region.
They specialize in servicing commercial and industrial accounts with fuel, lubricants, equipment and maintenance.
The Challenge:
In 2007, Quality Petroleum decided it was time to change their software. They needed more functionality that was specific to jobbers and would save them time. Since the typical initial investment for new software can be intense, they were determined to find the right, long term fit. They spent several years of researching and interviewing several accounting software companies, including AIMS.
One of Quality Petroleum’s biggest concerns was whether the software company they selected would be in business for the long haul. They also were looking for quality customer service and a relatively painless migration from their old system to their new one.
After visiting AIMS in person several times, and learning more about COMPAS Commander, Quality Petroleum knew they’d found their software.
The Solution:
It was clear that AIMS and their accounting software was a match for Quality Petroleum. AIMS could (and can) confidently declare that they’ll be in business for the long haul since they’re privately funded, offer a robust set of software solutions and have an extremely loyal customer base.
In addition, Quality Petroleum was impressed with how well they were treated. The AIMS team was great to talk with and easy to understand. It was clear that they would offer exceptional customer service and work with Quality to address any needs or issues that may arise. AIMS made the conversion from their old system to Commander really easy, saving them time, money and stress.
“After seeing Commander, I was sold. AIMS was by far, the best in customer service I’ve ever seen. Customer service makes a big difference because you can have problems with any software. And if you can’t get it handled it’s not worth it.” – Office Manager, Caroline Barclay
“Things are going great here. We actually underwent a fuel audit earlier in the year and it was nice how easy the new system measured up to the auditor’s requests. The difference between its accountability and our old system was like night and day. I wish we had switched over sooner, but at least I know that in the future any auditing processes should be a breeze. It’s hard to believe we’ve already had it a year. Thanks for helping us make the transition, we couldn’t be happier with our choice.”