Petroleum Accounting Software in 2026

Petroleum accounting software keeps the books of a fuel business: receivables on fuel credit terms, fuel inventory in gallons and dollars, the excise and sales tax owed, the bank, and the close at month end. Red River holds payables and receivables inside RR Fuel, and its CSMinder store back office handles a store's accounting, with a QuickBooks connection for operators who keep their ledger there. Series2K sells an accounting add-on and connects to QuickBooks and other accounting systems. The load-to-invoice side of these systems is covered in our review of petroleum wholesale software.

Its own ledger, or someone else's

A fuel system with its own general ledger posts every invoice, settlement and payment as it happens, and the balance sheet reads from those same entries. Click a receivable balance and the invoices behind it open. A fuel system that posts to a separate ledger keeps the detail at home, and many such connections send the ledger a daily summary. The ledger then holds the day's totals.

Both setups work, and plenty of jobbers keep QuickBooks because their accountant works in it. The difference shows at month end. With two systems, the totals in the ledger have to be tied back to the detail in the fuel system, account by account, before the books close. With one, the receivables aging and the receivables account come from the same entries, so they match.

March, closed two ways

A jobber runs two companies: a wholesale company and a company that holds its commissioned-agent stations. In March the wholesale company writes 1,140 customer invoices and books 210 supplier invoices from the terminals. The agent company settles 6 stations every day, 186 settlements for the month. The two run 3 bank accounts between them.

When the fuel system posts daily summaries to a separate ledger, each company ties out the accounts where the two systems overlap. The wholesale company ties out receivables, fuel inventory and tax payable, and the agent company does the same for its fuel inventory, its tax payable and the settlement clearing account. That is 6 tie-outs, plus the intercompany balance and the 3 bank reconciliations. Each tie-out checks a ledger total against a fuel-system report, and a difference gets traced back through 31 daily summaries.

When the ledger is inside the fuel system, those 6 tie-outs drop away, because the reports and the ledger read the same entries. March still needs the 3 bank reconciliations, the tank readings checked against book gallons, the 210 supplier invoices checked against the suppliers' drafts and the tax accounts checked against the returns.

Fuel inventory carries one more choice either way: the cost method. The ledger values the gallons in the tanks by FIFO, LIFO or average cost, and FastDragon's article on fuel inventory accounting works the three methods through with numbers.

Which petroleum accounting systems carry their own general ledger

DTN's part comes before the ledger. Its Fuel Admin feeds electronic bills of lading into whichever back office a jobber runs, and the posting happens there.

What makes fuel books different

Two things set fuel books apart from other distribution books. Branded suppliers often net the card proceeds they owe a jobber against the fuel drafts the jobber owes them, so one bank line can carry both. The books need each half on its own: the gross fuel purchase and the card receivable it was netted against. Tanks are the second. The gallons the books say are on hand and the gallons a stick or tank gauge reads drift apart, and someone has to post the variance to an account each month. Ask each vendor to show both with your own numbers.

Receivables, cards and the bank

Fuel money moves by EFT, electronic transfers between bank accounts, in both directions. Suppliers draft for loads lifted at the terminal, customers pay by draft or card, and agent stations deposit their sales. One agent station's day is worked through in our guide to commissioned-agent settlement software. ADD Financials handles positive and negative EFT from fuel vendors, COMPAS Commander from AIMS reconciles credit cards, and FastDragon carries deposits in transit and outstanding checks in the bank reconciliation until the difference reaches zero.

Receivables run on credit terms set customer by customer. ADD's E3 sends dunning letters, the reminders that go out as an account nears or passes its terms, and runs pre-buy, budget and installment plans. Red River's Pioneer Card Processor sets credit limits by account or by driver. FastDragon ages fuel and non-fuel documents together on each customer's own terms. Ask iRely, PDI and Series2K to age one of your customers on screen. How much cash those terms tie up is worked through in our guide on how to start a fuel distribution business.

More than one company

Many fuel businesses are several companies under one owner: a wholesale company, a store company, a real estate company that holds the sites. ADD pairs E3 with Microsoft Dynamics GP, which handles multiple companies and intercompany entries. FastDragon holds the companies in three tiers, each with its own tax IDs, and runs statements for one company or the group. COMPAS Commander from AIMS gives an income statement for each store or a chosen group of stores. Ask PDI, iRely, Series2K and Red River to consolidate two of your companies on screen. A load sold from your wholesale company to your own store company is worked through in our guide for fuel jobbers with convenience stores.

Questions to ask about the books

1. Where is my general ledger kept?
   In your fuel system, or in QuickBooks, Dynamics or another package. When it is kept elsewhere, ask how often entries post and whether they arrive as detail or as totals.
2. Click from the balance sheet to the invoice.
   Open a receivables balance and follow it down to one customer's invoice and the load behind it.
3. Close last month on screen.
   Run the steps on a real month and count what gets checked by hand.
4. Reconcile one bank account against my statement.
   Bring a statement with a deposit in transit and an outstanding check and watch both carry forward.
5. Make the inventory account match the tanks.
   Ask how the gallons on hand and the dollars in the inventory account tie at month end, and which cost method the system runs.
6. Consolidate my companies.
   Two companies with one owner: each company's statements, the group's, and the intercompany balance at zero.
7. Where does the tax payable balance come from?
   Pick a state you file in and trace its schedule back to the loads and to the ledger account.

Excise tax on the books

Federal excise tax on gasoline and diesel is imposed when fuel is removed at the terminal rack, and the position holder, the company holding the inventory position in the terminal, owes it. A jobber buying from a position holder pays the tax inside its purchase price and carries it through to its customers. A jobber that holds its own terminal position reports on IRS Form 720. States add their own schedules. Texas, for one, collects its 20-cent diesel tax through suppliers and has suppliers and distributors file monthly by the 25th.

AIMS reports fuel excise tax for all states and localities, Red River writes EDI files, the electronic format many states take fuel tax returns in, and PDI Enterprise includes fuel excise tax reporting. FastDragon builds state schedules from the loads, among them Connecticut's gasoline and diesel schedules and New York's PT-101.1 and PT-102.1.