Santoro Oil Expands Reach and Services With Cargas Energy’s Team & Technology

Cargas Energy Helps Santoro Oil…

CHALLENGES

Inferior Technology, Sub-Standard Support, Unkept Promises

According to Anthony Santoro, Jr., regional manager, the legacy-based software Santoro Oil originally used lacked the features and functionality the company needed to grow and stay at the forefront of the industry.

“All we experienced were limitations. Our vendor was not prepared to help bring solutions to our industry that met our customer needs in terms of automation and features.” shared Santoro. “They couldn’t even meet our go-live date when we switched to them, and we had to run dual entries into both our old software and their software for nearly 12 months.” 

He also said the organization of the system was inferior. “Stuff was all over the place, and we had to make a lot of keystrokes to accomplish things,” he explained. “And there was no mobile component nor automation.”

Customer service and dispatchers had no real-time access to the status of deliveries or drivers’ and technicians’ locations. Generating tickets and invoices was a manual process. “Our people were flying blind when making decisions because everything was on pad and paper,” recalled Santoro. 

According to John Fantacone, director of IT, generating reports from the system was difficult as well. The IT team had to custom-create most of the company’s reports, which involved extensive clean-up and manipulation of the data because the system’s canned reports didn’t serve their needs.  

“Basically, they never improved their product during the entire tenure we had with them,” shared Fantacone. “They kept trying to implement new technology that failed, and our support list continued to expand.”

He and Santoro said their company had over 500 never-addressed open product suggestions with the vendor and over 100 active support tickets open at any given time.

“It was a never-ending backlog,” said Fantacone. 

SOLUTIONS

Advanced Technology and a Partner Dedicated to Helping Them Succeed

In 2009, Santoro Oil began searching for a software vendor committed to looking forward and evolving with the industry. They wanted a partner who could help them achieve greater operational efficiency and a paperless environment via robust automation, a customer portal, mobile capabilities, and enhanced visibility into their data. 

They chose Cargas Energy after a thorough and communicative sales experience with Cargas sales reps Dennis DiSabatino and Saul Cohen. 

“We were impressed with their knowledge of both their product and our industry. They spoke our language,” Santoro shared.

Santoro and Fantacone felt the Cargas Energy team was genuinely vested in helping them succeed, citing Cargas’s ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Program) and employee-owned structure as advantages over other software providers in the industry. That was a deciding factor, along with Cargas Energy solution’s capabilities and Cargas’s well-selected API partnerships that enable integrations with other business solutions. 

Santoro Oil went live with Cargas Energy in 2009. In 2010, it added a second Cargas Energy subscription for its newly acquired heating oil and air conditioning company, ckSmith Superior. In 2021, Santoro Oil also partnered with Cargas to switch its financial software to Sage Intacct.

Some of the modules and features Santoro Oil is using to streamline its operations and gain efficiencies include:

Cargas Energy 

• Mobile Delivery
• Mobile Service
• Anova’s Wesroc tank monitoring integration (propane)
• Trimble Route Building Integration
• Destwin Customer Web Portal Integration
• MID:COM Electronic Meter Integration
• Fleet Navigator integration 

Sage Intacct

• Core Financials
• Multi-Entity Package
• Fixed Assets

BENEFITS

Elevated Efficiency and Growth

According to Fantacone and Santoro, the Cargas Energy software is operationally superior, and having a cloud-based solution with real-time access and automation features has benefited the company immensely.

“Before, we used all paper tickets and had to manually check if they were delivered. Now tracking tickets is all automated in the software, and we can easily identify what orders haven’t been fulfilled.”

– Anthony Santoro, Jr., Regional Manager, Santoro Oil

The mobile applications in Cargas Energy enable them to know where their trucks are at all times, verify deliveries, see how many gallons are left on each truck, and even mitigate risk.

With the Mobile Delivery module, they can lock tank meters at pre-set gallon amounts, so delivery drivers can’t pump more than the tank’s capacity. Customer service reps, dispatchers, and managers can make sure pre-sets are correct, reducing the risks of spilling oil or fuel, which can result in hefty fines, increased insurance rates, and other costs.

Fantacone said the Mobile Service module provides an important risk-reducing feature, too.

When their technicians do efficiency tests (e.g., to analyze combustion and measure carbon dioxide levels, flue temperature, etc.), they upload the information right into Cargas Energy along with pictures of the meter readings.

“If, for some reason, we were brought into a court of law, we can prove that the equipment’s readings were within safety tolerances when we were on site,” Fantacone explained.

The APIs that connect Cargas Energy with third-party software have been game-changers, too. 

For example, Santoro said the propane tank monitoring integration optimizes delivery schedules and has enabled Santoro Oil to reach 90 to 95% delivery capacity versus the 60 to 70% percent in the past. 

“That’s probably the biggest money saver for our company,” said Santoro.

“The ability to scale our business would have been much more difficult without the right software partner.”

– Anthony Santoro, Jr., Regional Manager, Santoro Oil

Because of the electronic meter integration, all of the company’s trucks have gone from fully mechanical to fully electronic delivery ticket and invoice creation. 

Another API enables Santoro Oil to text service appointments and delivery reminders to customers — and send photos of the technicians en route to the customer location. It saves time, improves productivity, and increases customer safety.

In addition, their customer portal integration empowers customers to order deliveries and services, make payments, update their account information, and request paperless billing — all online without calling the office. 

Similarly, Santoro Oil leverages Cargas Energy’s EDI compatibility to automatically order and restock parts that need to be replenished daily in the company’s service vans. 

“It’s good to see the longevity of the people at Cargas and the new people coming on board who have the same attitude and same perseverance to help us succeed.”

– John Fantacone, Director of IT, Santoro Oil

The transition to cloud-based Sage Intacct from the company’s on-premise accounting system has saved time and made it easier to retrieve information and reports by aligning GL codes company-wide and providing symmetry when posting intercompany transactions.

“It has simplified setting up new users. We just create a user account, and they’re off and running.” shared Fantacone. He estimates provisioning a user in the old system took nearly three hours, whereas now it only takes a few minutes. It has helped end-users as well, who can now generate financial reports in just minutes rather than hours. 

The move to Sage Intacct has also opened the door to using other cloud applications, such as AP automation.

Both Fantacone and Santoro value how Cargas Energy continues to evolve and improve as Santoro Oil’s needs and the industry change. They said that given the size, scope, and complexity of their operations, they don’t believe they could operate effectively without the technological advances that Cargas has provided.

“Our business today is much more complex than when we first went live with Cargas. We had approximately 40 users then. Fast forward to today — we have nearly 150 users,  we run two separate Cargas databases that serve two entities across six divisions, and we have many API integrations built with several Cargas partners,” Santoro shared. “And we’ve expanded into two additional markets and added offerings, like fleet fueling, that might not have been a consideration without Cargas Energy.”

Beyond the technology, they say the bond they feel with the people at Cargas makes their working relationship extraordinary. 

They said the sales team, their project manager (Gale Shirk), product manager Ian Libhart, and everyone else at Cargas Energy are knowledgeable, kind, respectful, and continuously gathering feedback.

“The Cargas team’s relationship skills are out of this world,” said Fantacone. “We’ve had solid relationships that have lasted a long time. They’re friends. It’s hard to imagine working with a software company with whom we don’t have that kind of connection and level of trust.”