Standard Oil of Connecticut, Inc. has been keeping homes and businesses warm since 1913. With over 170,000 annual fuel deliveries, the company's fast, reliable and cost-effective service is exceeded only by its cadre of highly skilled emergency service technicians whose response time is unparalleled. Three years ago, they implemented Westbrook Technologies’ document management software in their Accounts Receivable department to better serve their growing customer base, which has reached 38,000.

Fortis streamlined remittance processing and inquiries, eased document viewing and displayed an overall return on investment within the first year. From there, usage of this powerful tool has been extended throughout the company and to Standard Petroleum and Standard Security Systems. Having permeated all three companies, Fortis has secured a critical role speeding up processes and increasing efficiency within the core areas of Sales, Service and Credit. It is also used to benchmark safety standards, maintain the company’s fleet of fuel transporters and for inventory control.

Standard Oil's Credit department handles about 30 customer billing discrepancies and fuel service contract inquiries per day. "It's great being able to give an immediate answer to a customer without having to get back to them," says Lillian Leone, Credit manager. "What took a day to resolve now takes about a minute using Fortis. That’s a 144,000 percent gain in efficiency."

Additionally, the department no longer pores over printed green bar reports extracting vital bits of information to determine the quantity of fuel sold or monthly billings. The hands-on steps have been eliminated while these same reports are captured and sent directly to Fortis making the reports easily accessible between departments.

The Sales department is having an easier time verifying customer fuel rates. After customers complete and return Standard Oil’s rate card - choosing between a fixed or variable rate on annual fuel delivery and sending along a deposit - both are captured into their Fortis system for quick referrals and price confirmations.

Fortis assists the Accounting department with managing Standard Petroleum's liquidinventory. This entails matching

bills of lading with invoices to create an overall supplier report of the stations. The department monitors the amount of fuel refilled at each of the 40 petroleum stationsacross the state by comparing the number of gallons loaded into the delivery trucks against the amount delivered. “If one of our petroleum stations has a discrepancy with the number of gallons our truck delivers, I pull the truck report and the supplier report from Fortis and am able to resolve it within the same hour," says Nancy Moore, Accounts Receivable.

They are also manage customer financing for residential heating systems. Using Fortis, contract and release liens are retrieved 15 times faster.

In addition to using Fortis to track petroleum expenses and inventory, Accounts Payable’s Maritza Rodriguez uses it for matching bills of lading with invoices from over 11,000 vendors, sending out nearly 25,000 payments per year.

The Operations side of the oil business uses Fortis to set benchmarks for drivers to improve their service efficiency. By analyzing delivery ticket information stored in their Fortis system, they developed a safety incentives program to minimize spills and deliveries to incorrect addresses. “We’ve seen an increase in the integrity of our operations,” says Joe Kusnitz, Oil manager. “Because our business is seasonal, there is a large turnover of drivers and a constant learning curve for new ones. We use Fortis as part of our reactionary research to track deliveries to wrong locations by locating the delivery ticket and the information stored on it. If the wrong home receives an oil delivery, we investigate where it should have been delivered. This helps us to communicate with that person's oil company to avoid an unnecessary delivery that could overflow the tank and lead to a spill. We also work with the recipient to recover our oil,” he says.

Charlie Wanamaker, Fleet Manager, handles a $1 million budget to maintain the 132 fuel and service vehicles. “I’m able to save money on truck parts alone using Fortis,” he says. “I store each truck’s maintenance history in my system and can refer to all repairs made along with the warranties for parts. Instead of buying a new battery that may cost $100, I immediately know if it’s still under warranty, costing me $30 instead.” Wanamaker also points out the ability to quickly access vehicle histories helps his staff troubleshoot trucks exhibiting similar problems. I can order parts in triplicate for a quantity discount and get our trucks back on the road quicker, he says.

Standard Home Security Systems maintains its client information on their Fortis system. Michael Poirier, assistant manager, says Fortis is an integral part of their operations. Securing over 10,000 homes means retaining sales contracts, alarm codes, home diagrams and system layouts. “With Fortis, we can access this information within a minute to aid our Service staff or even confirm an alarm system with a client’s insurance company.”

Service technicians are also benefiting from Fortis during service calls. More efficient home visits are ensured by accessing service tickets from past visits depicting work completed at the home. If a client’s alarm system is not working properly, a quick Fortis query will reflect the number of tests done at the time of installation and all work completed by Service staff saving time with reworking system checks.

Controller Ramy Peress relies on Fortis to keep the entire Standard organization going should the need arise for disaster recovery. “Fortis is important for unplanned events. If we were still keeping paper files and had a fire in our storage building, our records would be lost. We couldn’t ask customers to pay finance charges," he says. “By backing up our Fortis system nightly and forwarding to an attached server in an adjacent building via a fiber optic cable, we’re confident our business would sustain should something happen.”

Standard Oil’s Vice President John Mahony was instrumental in the initial Fortis rollout as well as the extension of the software across companies. “With over 300,000 documents stored, the companies keep coming up with more document types to add to the system and more employees who want to use it. That, in itself, is probably the most reliable and meaningful indicator of the value we place on Fortis.”