An energy commodity trading carve-out sought our help to transition its hydrocarbon accounting for its supply and marketing trading operations for one of the largest crude oil refineries in the world. The client needed an outside team leader with highly specialized industry accounting and technology expertise to manage the carve-out and startup of trading operations and related settlement processes. In addition, the client needed support to transition its back-office functions to a new business process outsourcing (BPO) provider.
We provided a consultant with deep experience in hydrocarbon accounting, SAP and RightAngle, an energy trading and risk management (ETRM) software, to facilitate the transition. Activities included coordinating with traders to develop and implement billing and settlement processes for industry commodities, training new employees, and providing hypercare (i.e., post-implementation support), as the company incorporated the carve-out operations and transitioned to a new BPO. We also developed procedures to monitor aged accounts receivables and implemented an AR dashboard. In addition, we developed a tracking system for all service-level agreements to ensure accurate recording of related costs and payments to the parent company.
Our highly specialized consultant established and documented processes for the standalone company and monitored settlements during the initial carve-out hypercare phase as the company transitioned to the new BPO provider. Our ability to perform the settlement work, introduce process improvements and train personnel ensured a smooth back-office transition.