Crude & refined trading
- June 9, 2023
- Posted by: Tom Hedge
- Blogs
Welcome to the first in a series of articles where we delve into the transformative power of our cutting-edge fuel dispatch software.
Due to the complexities surrounding supply chain management and logistics within this industry, fuel marketers, wholesalers, distributors, bulk buyers and convenience store retailers face unique challenges that demand efficient management and optimization.
Our fuel distribution software has been meticulously designed to address these intricacies.
Join us as we explore the comprehensive features of Techoil Dispatch, unveiling how it simplifies everything from price management and fuel procurement to logistics and invoicing.
What is Techoil Dispatch?
This ‘Best Buy and Dispatch’ for fuel marketers, retailers and more sits within our broader Techoil ETRM and ERP solution which manages all front, mid and back office operations for the crude and refined products trading industry. The software provides traders, marketers, risk managers, operations, finance personnel and all other key stakeholders with decision support tools and integrated commodity management.
Techoil Dispatch is available as a standalone solution and focuses specifically on the purchase, dispatch and reconciliation of fuel. This fuel distribution software is cloud-native and designed based on the specialist requirements of the industry, optimizing the everyday c-store supply decisions and associated logistics processes.
So, how exactly does our fuel delivery software help?
Key Features of Our Fuel Dispatch Software
Price Management
Our fuel planning software lets users stay informed about price fluctuations at all times – effortlessly. It provides users with outbound price notifications through email or push notifications to DTN.
As a result of this seamless integration with third-party services, you can make information decisions related to procurement and pricing activities based on up-to-date pricing information from various sources.
Automatic push notifications can be set up based on user-defined schedules, ensuring that users receive timely updates on day deals and mid-day price management.
Purchasing and Order Management
Fuel Procurement
Techoil Dispatch provides valuable tools for managing fuel contracts and optimizing purchase decisions, including:
- Aggregate view of normalized price data: Users can conveniently gather and analyze pricing information from multiple sources in a standardized format. By normalizing the data, variations and inconsistencies in pricing formats across different suppliers or markets are eliminated, providing users with a unified and consistent view of the prices. This enables users to compare and evaluate pricing data more effectively, facilitating informed decision-making.
- Contract management: With robust functionalities for account management/managing fuel contracts, users can efficiently organize and track their contractual agreements, including terms, conditions, pricing structures, and delivery schedules. Users can then easily monitor contract performance and identify opportunities for renegotiation.
- Best Buy: Our Best Buy functionality leverages historical pricing data, market trends, and user-defined preferences to identify the most advantageous buying opportunities. The software analyzes the available pricing options, considering factors such as volume discounts, market fluctuations, supplier performance, and contract terms. As a result, users can make informed choices that maximize cost savings, minimize risks, and ensure the procurement of high-quality fuel at competitive prices.
Order Management
Our fuel planning software provides a multitude of benefits to enhance your inventory management processes. With our intuitive inventory dashboard, you can effortlessly create orders using real-time insights into available capacity and demand. Whether it’s through integrations with third-party systems or our data import interface, you have the flexibility to initiate orders from multiple sources.
Our software offers automatic order generation based on accurate inventory forecasts, ensuring your orders align with anticipated demand.
Additionally, users can define and communicate supply pick lists effortlessly. Whether you’re managing individual orders or multiple orders simultaneously, our mass update functionality allows you to efficiently assign and communicate supply pick lists, saving valuable time and reducing manual effort.
Freight Invoicing
Effortlessly manage and apply scenario-specific mileage-based freight rates, point-to-point rates, fuel surcharges, and ancillary fees. This ensures accurate and transparent pricing calculations, eliminating manual errors and reducing disputes with carriers.
Generate invoices with a single click – they will incorporate predetermined charges based on actual delivery data. This automation saves you time and reduces the risk of invoicing inaccuracies, improving your billing efficiency and cash flow management.
Again, the integration capabilities of our techoil software are another significant advantage. You can seamlessly transfer event-driven freight charges or invoices to third-party applications in real-time – no need for manual data entry or file transfers.
Fuel Invoicing
Our software provides robust capabilities for efficiently managing motor fuel excise and sales tax. Fuel taxes, allowances and other fees are automatically calculated based on data collected during the order execution. This reduces the administrative burden as well as the risk of errors, and ensures tax compliance and a streamlined tax reporting process.
To automate your invoicing efforts, our software prepopulates essential information such as the bill of lading (BOL) and delivery date. Again, this eliminates the need for manual data entry, saving time and reducing the potential for invoicing errors.
Finally, the integration with third-party pricing services to automatically determine the cost of fuel and freight charges.
Logistics
Vehicle Management
The vehicle management functionality enables the close monitoring of compliance dates and upcoming requirements. It also facilitates the assignment of vehicles for order fulfilment, and the receipt of timely notifications for drivers. All in all, it ensures the smooth execution of orders.
Driver Management
With driver management, users gain access to a wealth of historical reports and statistics regarding drivers. They can efficiently manage driver qualifications and reporting, as well as terminal cards and dispatch warnings.
Additionally, the system allows users to view and share expected shift schedules and order-specific execution times for individual drivers, enhancing overall coordination and productivity.
Card and Timeline-Based Dispatch
The card and timeline-based dispatch functionality provides real-time updates on orders. Users can conveniently manage fuel supply options, update or cancel orders, and handle driver cards. In addition, users can filter page results without leaving the visual assign screen, which saves valuable time.
Why Choose Techoil Dispatch?
Our fuel dispatch software is crafted based on a wealth of industry expertise – a specialized solution that leaves no stone unturned when it comes to fuel management. To summarize why it’s the best option:
- Buy fuel at the best available price
- Simplified financial accounting due to fast, automated invoicing and fee calculation
- Route optimization for cost saving, improved customer satisfaction, working around traffic or unpredictable incidents on the road, accommodating last minute requests, and many other eventualities
- Comprehensive driver management features
- Invoice within 5 minutes of fuel delivered in the ground
- Manage complete driver pay – by trip/load or hourly
- Handle order management in real-time
- Powered by advanced analytics
- Seamless integration with external systems and data feeds for smooth operations
- A cloud-based solution – this means minimum IT infrastructure, rapid implementation, easy scalability, and NO recurring implementation cost
- Robust customer support
- Streamlines the entire operation
In Closing
Fuel marketers, wholesalers, distributors, bulk buyers and c-store retailers have a great deal of complexity to manage every day when navigating the supply chains.
To stay profitable, it’s essential to use up to date software that can handle the large volume of data that needs processing with every minute that passes. That’s why cloud based fuel dispatch software is the key – it’s built to handle such challenges.
Inatech is a global pioneer in ETRM/CTRM solutions, supplying a range of risk management platforms for all your energy trading needs. To see Techoil Dispatch in-action, contact us today to book a demo.