About NCS Multistage
Established in 2006 in Houston, Texas, NCS Multistage provides engineered products and services globally for oil and natural gas wells. The company specializes in Fracturing Systems, Well Construction, Tracer Diagnostics, and Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), generating around $142 million in annual revenue.
Situation
NCS approached Oracle and Centroid to streamline their disparate and dated finance systems. They were leveraging on-premises Hyperion and Excel for consolidations, planning, and budgeting processes, but struggled to collaborate and gain useful insights from the siloed data.
They also used BlackLine for account reconciliations but had limited visibility into source data balances. The month-end process took several weeks to complete due to their complex structure, composed of 16 separate legal entities using various accounting systems, including QuickBooks.
Their Excel-based approach for intercompany eliminations and journals posed extensive risks for errors and tracking changes throughout the close, and account reconciliations suffered from manual data loads and a lack of automation. They needed a more efficient way to mitigate risk and provide the reporting reliability required of a public company.
Action
Through a partnership with Oracle and Centroid, NCS implemented Oracle Cloud Financial Consolidation, Planning, and Account Reconciliations to modernize their financial systems. Centroid delivered annual budget and driver-based planning for long-range forecasts by increasing visibility with direct integrations to source data, correcting accuracy for journal entries to specific entities.
The direct integration with Oracle enabled drill-back functionality from reporting and reconciliations for a single version of truth. Furthermore, NCS enabled an annual budget, a 12-month rolling quarterly forecast, and a 3-5-year long-range plan.
Impact
The project led to a 50% increase in journal entry accuracy, allowing NCS to reduce their month-end close process from several weeks to just days, significantly improving efficiency. As Wade Bitter, Chief Accounting Officer, stated, “Our close process will be much more automated with the implementation of Oracle EPM Cloud. It will save us a lot of time each month.” The enhanced visibility and accuracy provided by the new system mitigated risks and improved the reliability of their financial reporting.