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Solution · Legal & complianceThe twentieth of the month stops being panic day for the licensing desk
Fuel licence reports ready before the deadline
A robot keeps the calendar of licence obligations, aggregates ERP volumes into the report layout after month-end close, checks them against history and hands a person the complete pack for approval, with days to spare, not hours.
Executive summary
A fuel licence holder files recurring reports on its trade. The data lives in the ERP, but in different cross-sections than the form, so every month someone glues it together by hand.
The obligation calendar, the aggregation of volumes into the form’s layout and the deviation check against history all run automatically after month-end close.
Reporting stops being a race against the deadline. A person approves a pack prepared in advance, and deviations get explained before submission, not after a letter from the regulator.
trade volumes in the ERP; the obligations and deadlines register; report packs for approval in Microsoft Teams
Business problem
The form versus the ERP
A licence to trade liquid fuels carries a fixed running cost: recurring reporting to the regulator. Reports on the kinds and quantities of fuels, broken down by CN codes, directions and counterparties, are filed monthly and yearly, on deadlines counted in days from period close.
The trouble is not the difficulty of the form but the cross-sections. The ERP knows sales by material numbers and customers; the form wants volumes by CN codes and activity types. Someone must translate one into the other every month, and the mapping of materials to codes lives in a spreadsheet whose current version one person knows.
The deadlines coincide with month-end close, the very period when accounting already runs at capacity. So the report is built in a hurry, validated by eye, and leaves at five to midnight. The error is found not by its author but by the authority, in a request for correction.
The risk is out of all proportion to the effort: delays and errors in licence reporting carry penalties, and in extreme scenarios open a discussion about the licence itself. The company stakes the foundation of its business on a task performed by hand, in the worst possible week of the month.
How it works today
Below is what the work looks like before anything is automated.
- PersonAfter close, someone exports fuel sales and purchases from the ERP into a spreadsheet
- PersonMaterial numbers are mapped to CN codes by hand, from a table one person knows
- Risk of errorInvoice corrections from earlier periods enter the volumes, or not, depending on who is counting
- WaitingThe report waits for a free hour between month-end duties
- Risk of errorValidation is visual: nobody systematically compares volumes with previous periods
- Risk of errorSubmission at five to midnight; the error surfaces with the regulator’s letter or at an inspection
Why the current process costs more than it appears
The bill that never shows up in a budget.
- The hours count double because they fall in month-end close: every hour on the report is an hour taken from reconciliations that also have no time.
- The knowledge of mapping materials to CN codes lives in one head and one spreadsheet. That person’s holiday is a regulatory risk, which sounds absurd precisely because it is true.
- A volume deviation that should be an internal question (“why does March have 40% more diesel?”) becomes the authority’s question, and then the answer costs many times more.
- Every change in regulations or in the form means relearning the process, because the process is written down nowhere; it is a habit.
Cost of inaction
The first two rows are certain, countable costs. The third deliberately has no amount: sanctions in licence reporting follow from statute and the regulator’s decisions, and their range is wide enough that any number on a page would either scaremonger or trivialise. It is enough to know they exist and that they also cover lateness.
The real asymmetry lies elsewhere: doing this properly costs little and once, while the exposure is cyclical and open-ended, because reports are due every period for as long as the licence exists.
A model organisation with realistic proportions – the numbers exist so you can run the same maths on your own data; they are not a client result.
A fuel trading company holding a trading licence: wholesale diesel and petrol to fleet and agricultural customers, its own storage depot, SAP as the ERP, Microsoft 365, one person responsible for licences alongside transport permits.
A dozen or more reporting obligations a year to the regulator and related institutions; volumes around 60m litres a year across dozens of CN code and direction cross-sections.
After every close: SAP exports, spreadsheet mapping, manual keying into forms and submission; all on one desk, in closing week.
About two working days a month in the most loaded week, zero automated validation and full dependence on one person’s presence.
After close the robot aggregates volumes by the versioned CN mapping, compares every cross-section with history and seasonal medians, builds the report pack and posts it for approval in Teams with a list of deviations to explain.
In the modelled case the report is ready for approval three days after close rather than three hours before the deadline; deviations are explained internally before anyone outside asks. Model numbers, not anyone’s ledgers.
Proposed solution
The foundation is not a robot but two written artefacts: the obligations register (what, to whom, by when, in what layout) and the versioned mapping of material numbers to CN codes and activity types. Both are created with your licensing owner, and both have an owner and a change history.
After month-end close the robot pulls volumes from the ERP, applies the mapping and builds the report in the form’s required layout. Before anything reaches a person, every cross-section is compared with previous periods: a deviation above the threshold gets a label and a request for explanation. Only the complete set, data plus explained deviations, goes for approval in Microsoft Teams.
A person approves and files; the robot watches for the submission confirmation, archives the pack with the mapping version and source data, and reminds about the next deadlines from the obligations calendar. A change in the form or the law is an edit of a template and a mapping in one place, not the learning of a new habit.
UiPath Orchestrator: post-close triggers, obligation queues, retries and an audit trail; UiPath Integration Service connectors for Microsoft Teams and Outlook 365; UiPath Action Center approvals
The obligations register with its calendar, versioned CN mapping, volume aggregation, deviation control against history, report packs with archiving and escalating reminders
Sales and purchase volumes from SAP via documented interfaces (tables, BAPIs or exports); report forms in the format the authority requires; optionally invoice corrections from FI
How the automated process works
- SystemMonth-end close in the ERP starts the reporting run for the calendar’s obligations
- AutomationThe robot aggregates volumes by the versioned CN mapping and builds the report in the form’s layout
- AutomationEvery cross-section is compared with previous periods; deviations above threshold are labelled
- PersonThe licensing owner explains deviations and approves the pack in Microsoft Teams
- AutomationThe robot watches for the filing confirmation and archives the pack with source data and mapping version
- PersonThe calendar shows the next deadlines; escalation goes to a manager if an approval stalls
Human-in-the-loop model
Automation handles
- The obligations calendar, volume aggregation and report building in the required layouts
- Comparing every cross-section with history and labelling deviations above the threshold
- Archiving packs with a full data lineage and watching submission confirmations
People decide
- The mapping of materials to CN codes and every change to it
- Deviation explanations and the approval decision for every pack
- Contact with the regulator and interpretations in ambiguous matters
Before and after
Systems and integrations
The stack is short on purpose: one engine, one execution layer, one place where a person decides.
Inputs
- fuel sales and purchase volumes in the ERP
- the obligations and deadlines register
- the versioned material-to-CN mapping
- invoice corrections from earlier periods
Automation layer
- UiPath Orchestrator
- UiPath Robots
- UiPath Integration Service
- UiPath Action Center
Target systems
- report packs in the forms’ layouts
- an archive of filed reports with data lineage
- approvals and reminders in Microsoft Teams
Human touchpoints: UiPath Action Center approvals in Microsoft Teams; the obligations calendar as a Teams tab; a mapping review after every regulatory change
Technologies used
post-close runs, obligation queues, retries, audit
Apacks for approval, reminders and escalations where compliance already works
Aone-click report approval, with the deviation list inside the task
Avolumes and corrections via documented tables and interfaces; the robot reads, posts nothing
Ascope and deadlines follow from the Polish Energy Law and secondary acts; the legal state is verified at implementation and at every change
BHow we deliver this
From this description to a running process
We deliver this solution through our process automation service: first we measure the process on company data, then we build, test and maintain the robots. SAP integration is handled by our SAP team.
Industry
Case studies
Delivered client work is described under Case studies.
Illustrative economic model
Numbers you can check against your own data.
The arithmetic deliberately excludes penalties, because their size follows from statute and decisions this page does not price. It includes the certain cost: time in the worst week of the month, and corrections. The real stake of this process is not eight thousand euros but the continuity of the licence on which the company’s entire revenue stands.
Run the numbers on your data
An illustrative estimate based on your inputs. It models freed capacity, not promised savings.
Business benefits
- Reports are ready with days to spare, outside the closing-week peak
- CN mapping stops being tribal knowledge: it has an owner, versions and history
- Volume deviations are explained internally, before submission, not in correspondence with the authority
- Every filed report has an archive with source data, so an inspection is a printout, not an investigation
- One person’s absence stops being a regulatory risk
The management view
- The foundation of revenue, the licence, stops depending on a manual task performed under pressure
- Management sees all obligations and their statuses in the calendar before they become urgent
- The report history with data lineage is a ready answer to any inspection
Board-level KPIs
reports filed before the deadline · buffer days between readiness and deadline · deviations explained before submission · corrections after regulator letters · obligations without an assigned owner
Security and governance
The automation has exactly the permissions it needs. Not one more.
- The robot reads the ERP with a minimal-rights technical account and changes nothing in it; filings are made by a person, or by the robot with a person’s knowledge and approval
- Every pack archives source data, the mapping version and the approver, so every report line has a lineage
- The CN mapping and the obligations register are versioned; changes require the licensing owner
- Personal data is practically absent; reporting deals in volumes and counterparties to the extent the forms require
- Packs and archives stay in your Microsoft 365 tenant, and the robots run in the EU region of UiPath Automation Cloud
Why now
Fuel-sector reporting is not shrinking; recent history is a story of added obligations and an ever shorter path from failure to sanction. A manual process scales in one direction only: worse.
The data has been in the ERP for years and the forms have stable layouts. This is automation with low technical risk and immediate effect: the first automated period beats the last manual one.
The cost of inaction is asymmetric: the saving from skipping the project is one-off and small, while the exposure to penalties and a licence discussion is cyclical and open-ended.
Relevant executive roles
The licence’s continuity stops hanging on one person’s habit in the worst week of the month
Reporting leaves the critical path of month-end close, and corrections stop coming back
Instead of gluing exports, they approve a ready pack and explain deviations while these are still internal
Common questions and objections
The layout changes, the substance more rarely: volumes in cross-sections. That is why the form template and the mapping are configuration, not code: a regulatory change is a table edit with a new version and an effective date, and the old versions remain for explanations years back.
Precisely because of that. Those two days fall in the week the company closes its books, and they vanish from tasks nobody else will do. The automation does not replace this person; it returns them to the role where they are irreplaceable: explaining deviations and talking to the regulator.
Rightly so: by default the robot prepares and a person files. Automatic submission is an option switched on later, for obligations with a stabilised run, always with a pre-submission approval.
When this is not the right solution
- One simple obligation a year on a stable volume: a calendar and a template will do
- An ERP without reliable per-material volumes: first order in master data, then reporting
- The expectation of legal advice: the automation orders the process and the data, but interpretation of the law stays with your lawyers
A question for the next management meeting
Which of our reporting obligations have a written process and a replaceable operator, and which exist solely as one person’s habit?
Implementation approach
Scope without ambiguity, before anything is signed.
We deliver
- The obligations register with calendar, owners and escalations
- A versioned material-to-CN mapping, written down with your specialist
- Automated report building with deviation control against history
- Approvals in Microsoft Teams and a pack archive with full data lineage
- A parallel run across two reporting periods and post-go-live care
We need from you
- The last four filed reports of each type together with the exports they were built from
- The licensing officer as owner of the mapping and of deviations
- Read access to ERP volumes and to the form templates
Stages
Discovery
The last four periods reconstructed from data to form: where the numbers really come from and where the process hurts
Rules
The obligations register, CN mapping and deviation thresholds approved by compliance
Build
Aggregation, deviation control, packs, approvals and the archive
Parallel run
Two periods computed in parallel, robot and human, differences explained to the litre
Go-live
Switch to automated mode with a review after the first quarter
A quick win. Effort depends on the number of obligations, the cleanliness of material data in the ERP, and whether the forms are electronic or portal-based.
The authority asks about a March from two years ago. The person who filed that report left a year ago.
Send us any one filed report and the exports it was built from. We return the same report built by our process, with the deviations we would have flagged for explanation, and a lineage for every number.
Show us one of your reportsThe neighbouring process usually has the same problem
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