Staying Ahead of Fuel Losses with Real-Time Inventory Reconciliation

Imagine trying to keep track of your fuel usage with a traditional monthly reconciliation process. By the time you discover discrepancies or shortages, it’s often too late, leading to unavoidable write-offs and significant financial losses. But what if you could monitor and audit your fuel inventory every day?

INSTANT RECONCILIATION AND AUDITS

Our Fuel Inventory Reconciliation tool offers an easy to use, daily snapshot of your fuel receipts, refuels, and stock levels. It compiles your opening stock levels across all storages, aggregates top loadings and dispenses (including those for your own vehicles, contractor vehicles, and unassigned dispensations), and publishes estimated closing stock. The best part? The system validates book closing balances against the physical closing balance recorded by level sensors installed in bowsers and storage tanks, and spotlights stock discrepancies.

With our Automated Bowser Audit tool you can audit your data in seconds and as often as you'd like, spotting fuel shortages. Validate top loading, decantation, and dispensing transactions against live closing stock at the end of each shift. Furthermore, the diagnostic database search and synchronised graphs give you the power to root cause violations in an instant, so that you can fix accountability and take timely corrective action.

SPOT DISCREPANCIES BEFORE THEY COMPOUND

Let's dive into a real-life example to showcase the power and user-friendliness of our solution.

Our Inventory Reconciliation Report helped our client’s fuel management team catch a whopping 5,000 liters shortfall within minutes of day end! This minerals-to-metals MNC consumes more than 100,000 liters of fuel per day at their mine sites. During a routine day-end reconciliation, the analyst spotted a 5,044-liter stock shortfall from Diesel Bowser DB01-2203.

The estimated closing balance, calculated on the basis of the balance, receipts and dispensing activities which have been meticulously logged, was compared with the actual closing balance detected by fuel sensors. A significant discrepancy of 5,044 liters for Bowser DB01-2203 was highlighted here. This is a red flag!

PINPOINT ANOMALOUS TRANSACTIONS

Since this result was highly unusual, the analyst dug deeper using the Bowser Audit tool.

The tool has a sliding time window between which you can spot all diesel bowser transactions on the stem chart on top. Positive stems are “top loadings” (credits) and negative stems are “dispenses” (debits). The transactions reflect in the bottom chart, which is a time series plot of the bowser fuel stock. A “Show Audit” button launches an instant audit between “estimated” closing stock and actual closing stock and publishes the gap.

Using the tool, within minutes, the analyst was able to pinpoint the anomalous transaction. There was a 4,909-liter top loading transaction without a resulting increase in bowser fuel stock! A database search available in the tool confirmed that the erroneous fuel transaction was done using the RFID master card mapped to DB01-2203. The next step involved quizzing the operator responsible for the shift, who admitted to an RFID master card swap. 5,000 liters of fuel was debited to the client but transferred to a contractor!

Our system promptly tracked this violation, which would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed. With instant audits and root-cause analysis, our system saved the day, preventing a big reconciliation gap and a potential diversion of fuel to a contractor.

DRIVING CHANGE AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

The client promptly investigated, found the mistake, corrected it, and is now implementing change management to ensure contractors are accountable for their fuel cards. Our tool is not just another tool, but a solution that prompted reflection that led to a lasting and sustainable change for our client.

Mindshift’s Digitalization helps you monitor critical fuel operations, catch discrepancies early, conduct thorough root cause analyses, and ensure accurate fuel stock management. By providing real-time data and advanced analytics, our tools help you stay on top of your fuel inventory, preventing losses and improving efficiency. In an industry where every drop of fuel counts, our solutions offer the proactive approach needed to stay ahead.