Case Study

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How We Cut Our AP Time by 80% at Energy Investments — and Why That Led Us to Build Joltly

Our Story

Energy Investments was founded in 1995 by my dad, who had worked as a landman at Mobil. It was a small, family-run oil and gas company focused on upstream operations in Colorado and Kansas. Over the years, my mom supported the business behind the scenes while raising our family and working as a nurse.

In 2019, as the business transitioned into a new chapter, my mom stepped into a leadership role. Around that same time, I had just returned from a mission in Argentina and was wrapping up a degree in entrepreneurship at BYU. I started getting more involved in the operations — and that’s when we realized just how outdated and chaotic things were behind the scenes.

Invoices came in by email and mail. We were managing approvals through inboxes and tracking expenses in spreadsheets. Partner communication was slow. Payments were unclear. And everything depended on our bookkeeper.

We didn’t have transparency. We didn’t have control. And we didn’t have a system that actually worked for a small operator like us.

The Problem

Like a lot of small operators, our back office ran on duct tape:

• ❌ Invoices were tracked manually
• ❌ Approvals happened over email (if at all)
• ❌ Payments were handled in QuickBooks, with no well-level visibility
• ❌ We had no idea when vendors were paid or why something was coded the way it was
• ❌ Every partner question required a call to the bookkeeper and a day of digging

The Turning Point

We knew we needed something better.
Step one was switching to Quorum ODA as our accounting system. That helped with structure and well-level accounting. But it didn’t solve our biggest pain: AP workflows.

So I built Joltly.
At first, it was just for us — a way to fix the chaos at Energy Investments. But once it started working, we realized this wasn’t just a fix for our business. This was something that could help a lot of operators like us.

What Joltly Changed for Us

Since implementing Joltly, Energy Investments has seen real, measurable improvements across the board:

✅ Accounts Payable processing time cut by 80%
Manual workflows were replaced with automated approvals and well-level coding — reducing the time it takes to close out invoices from days to hours.

✅ Vendor payment visibility unlocked
No more wondering if or when vendors got paid. Everything is tracked, searchable, and confirmed in a couple clicks.

✅ Partner questions answered in seconds
Previously, answering “Did you pay that water hauler yet?” required digging through reports. Now it takes 30 seconds — and zero emails to the bookkeeper.

✅ Bookkeeper dependency drastically reduced
Everyone on the team can see what’s going on — without needing a full-time AP manager or calling someone to run a report.

✅ No new hires needed, even as operations grew
The team is managing more assets with fewer headaches — and no additional staff

“If I can use it, anybody can.”
— Wendi Chamberlain, President, Energy Investments

“I can see payments by vendor, by well, by date — all in one place. It’s made running this business so much easier.”
— Harrison Chamberlain, COO of Energy Investments & Co-Founder of Joltly

Takeaways

• Joltly started as a solution to our own back-office chaos. It was built by operators, not just developers.
• We designed it to be simple. No 200-page manuals, no six-month onboarding.
• It gives small teams transparency and control without having to hire a full-time AP specialist or switch accounting systems.

Want to See It in Action?

We’re now working with other operators — and they’re seeing the same results we did. If your AP process is still manual, buried in inboxes, or overly dependent on one person — it’s time for something better.