If you’ve spent any time in the oilfield services industry, you know it’s a cyclical business. When times are good, you’re on speed dial for work. When times are tight, you’re the first to feel it. And right now, with so much uncertainty in the market, profitability becomes the top priority to sustain your business.
The question is, how do you stay profitable during this uncertain time? You start by tackling a problem no one likes to talk about — the operational drag created by disconnected processes and paper-based workflows in the oilfield.
This is the first of a three-part blog series where we’ll break down how operational efficiency — especially in ticketing and invoicing — directly impacts your bottom line. In the next posts, we’ll cover why digital field tickets are a game-changer and how service companies are slashing DSO from months to days (and in many cases to zero). Even the most automated businesses continue to seek ways to boost profitability. And for oilfield service providers, one of the most overlooked areas is slow, manual, error-prone invoicing. Does this pain sound familiar?
The Buyer/Supplier Slow Dance
Managing oilfield service payments is like choreographing a large operational dance — and right now, it’s a slow one. What’s holding service companies back from increasing their AR pace and improving cash flow? Resistance at every turn: paper field tickets, manual processes in the field and back office, and a disconnect between operations and accounting. The result?
An average delay of 75 days from order to cash.
The Life of an Oilfield Service Ticket
If you’ve worked in operations, you know the drill: field tickets get scribbled on paper, stamped by the company man at the rig site and tossed in a truck to get dropped off at the office days later. The paper tickets often sit for weeks until someone manually enters the data into a billing system. Eventually an invoice gets created (if all goes well) and routed for approval, before finally landing with the customer – only to then be subject to payment terms of a contract (e.g., net 30 or net 60). The longer that cycle takes, the longer you wait to get paid. Meanwhile, there’s risk for errors along the way and revenue leaks go unnoticed.
The companies winning in today’s market aren’t necessarily doing more work — they’re getting paid faster and smarter for the work they already do.
Let’s think back to the days before smartphones, ecommerce and the internet. You’d call your friends from a phone bolted to the kitchen wall, wait six weeks for something you ordered from a catalog, and wrestle a giant TV just to watch a game. It feels like forever ago. Yet somehow, many oilfield service operations are still running like it’s those days — and it’s quietly costing time, money, and opportunities you can’t afford to lose.
Your dad didn’t have digital invoicing. Lucky for you, times have changed.
Enverus has a solution to modernize the operations to accounts receivable process, where orders for field services that took months to get paid can be digitally submitted and paid instantly. Digitalizing field operations eliminates invoicing delays, reduces costly errors, and gives you instant visibility into job status and financials. It’s not just about speed — it’s about control.
Imagine what you could do this summer with a little extra time and cash flow to reinvest in the business.
Stay tuned for the next blog post where we’ll get into the tangible, day-to-day benefits of digital field tickets and why it’s easier than you think to make the switch.
