Petroleum Distribution Considerations

The petroleum distribution and convenience store industries are subject to a host of financial, reputational, and compliance risks. For example, your businesses must guard against fuel storage container leakage, manage price volatility to turn a profit, and prevent various forms of theft. It is imperative that a business in this industry plan and monitor resources accurately and efficiently and remain in compliance with EPA, HAZMAT, PCI, and other regulations.

While no software solution will alleviate all risk of operating a business, a strong back-office Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution will have features that reduce the number of variables requiring frequent attention:

1. With cloud hosting solutions, the software company bears risks associated with equipment costs. With cloud-hosted software services, your organization pays a monthly subscription to use the software, while the software company manages upgrades, support, backups, and other services. In this model, your organization no longer needs to budget for such expenses, and the software company bears the risk.
   
2. Routine and redundant backups ensure your data will not be lost. The best way to protect your company against data loss is by conducting routine backups. When you choose a hosted solution, the software’s dedicated IT department should be providing backups according to a specific schedule (daily, hourly, etc.)
   
3. Ensure compliance requirements are met. Industry-specific state and federal compliance regulations are always in flux. Quality software vendors stay on top of changes in requirements and make sure the software is updated appropriately to meet additional data collection needs, reporting requirements, or security protocol.
   
4. Rest easy knowing data is secure. A data breach is not only financially costly, but it can also be extremely damaging to the company’s reputation. The best ERP solutions use top-end security protocols such as encrypting data during transmission and at rest, requiring proven methods for secure logins (for example, using active directory for user-profiles and authentication), and performing ongoing scans to detect system vulnerabilities and intrusion.
   
5. Protect against theft or misuse. ERP solutions provide a unique benefit to protect against internal theft or misuse. Since all modules within an ERP operate on the same single database, user transactions can be traced from end to end. Simple reporting allows you to pull audit reports to review transactions while system parameters give you the ability to limit user access.

A software solution should alleviate the stress and burden of risk management. iRely is an innovative software partner serving the petroleum industry for over 30 years. Our software solutions help petroleum distributors and C-stores manage core business processes within a single, easy-to-use system, customized to meet your needs. 

Download our guide that demonstrates how the right ERP solution provides a wide range of information at your fingertips, allowing you to make faster and smarter decisions.