Creedence Energy Chooses Dynamics 365 Business Central to Keep Pace with Rapid Growth
Creedence Energy Services, LLC is a rapidly growing chemical company in the oil and gas industry. Headquartered in Williston, ND, Creedence specializes in secure, affordable acidizing pumping and delivery services. Their mission is productivity-focused: their organization aims to deliver chemical solutions to energy operators that improve production, reduce failures, and enhance operational efficiency. While productivity and performance are the bedrock of their business, their approach is influenced and guided by a strong set of values. Creedence emphasizes encouragement, open-mindedness, effective communication, compassion, and gratitude. This dedication has led to explosive company growth, and their team quickly realized they needed a scalable ERP solution to handle the rapid increase in business.
Up until this point, Creedence had been using QuickBooks to handle their business operations. It was clear to them that they had outgrown their ERP software. QuickBooks could no longer match pace with their growth, employees were unable to properly track inventory, and time was of the essence. The oil industry is a cyclical sector, and Creedence wanted to take advantage of a lull in production to find an ERP solution that could grow with them. With this in mind, their team began a search for ERP products and partners.
In Search of the Right ERP System – and Partner
As with their operations, Creedence sought a business-savvy solution that would not only increase productivity and profitability, but that would adhere to their guiding principles. From the start, it was important for Creedence to find a partner who shared their values and matched their company culture. Their team works side-by-side with their clients on a regular basis, and it was important to Creedence to find an ERP partner with the same dedication and commitment.
Creedence team members did their due diligence. They explored several ERP products and spoke with various potential partners. As part of this search, Creedence employees attended Stoneridge Connect, a Microsoft Dynamics user group event. In attending sessions, their team met and interacted with the Stoneridge Software team — and its client community — and had a very positive experience. Creedence ultimately narrowed their list of potential partners, and after engaging in dialogues, sales, and delivery presentations, their team partnered with Stoneridge Software. They were confident in Stoneridge Software’s expertise and felt that together, both companies’ cultures fit well. With that, the two teams jumped right in to address Creedence’s business challenges.
The Solution
Stoneridge Software implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for Creedence. Included in the ERP solution was Power BI, a tool that Stoneridge Software connected to help Creedence improve their business analytics and reporting. To automate (and accelerate) information-intensive business workflows, Kofax ReadSoft Online was added to the solution. Additionally, Stoneridge Software implemented Gorilla Expense to assist Creedence with spend management.
Before this project, Creedence manually conducted their external reporting using Excel. With this new solution, their team can now export data directly from their Power BI report to Excel and submit their monthly reports in seconds.
When it came to inventory, Creedence saw an instant improvement in inventory controls and item management with their new ERP solution. Their previous system lacked the functionality they needed to visualize inventory transactions across multiple warehouse locations, but D365 BC now delivered critical business insight.
Similar to their old methods of reporting, which relied heavily on manual Excel use, Creedence’s previous Sales Order Entry and Invoicing practices involved tedious inputting. Now, their team captures orders in Business Central, where they have the ability to copy orders (to reuse sales order templates) and complete insight that reduces double entry. Their logistics team saves time since they no longer have to enter extra lines on a sales order to remove overages — with BC, employees can enter the actual amount of chemical delivered to the customer without jumping through hoops. For greater flexibility, assembly BOMs have the ability to use non-inventory items to consume in consumption. Additionally, the team can change the quantities if, for example, the actual production recipe used different components or quantities. This ability gives Creedence greater visibility and enhanced inventory accuracy. Furthermore, their new BC solution provides a budget to actual variance analysis with account schedules, a task that replaces manual G/L budgeting in Excel. Finally, as part of the solution to add structure and position Creedence for current and future growth, the Stoneridge Software team established a Period End accounting checklist for employees.
The Results
In partnering with Stoneridge Software, Creedence was able to complete their project on time and in scope. Their company relied on Stoneridge Software’s experienced resources to keep the project moving along. For their part, Creedence’s core project team completed all assigned tasks in a timely manner and provided feedback and questions to the Stoneridge Software team. Effective communication and an enthusiastic openness to innovative ideas cemented this partnership and contributed to the implementation’s success. Creedence stepped up with a positive attitude and offered their end users ample support and encouragement. Their core project team set clear priorities and were open to suggestions on best practices throughout the process.
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