Why Our FERC eForms Software Takes Hours, Not Months to Implement

I spent the better part of my career in accounting and finance before I ever worked in software. And one of the things I remember most clearly from those years is how a poor implementation could ruin an entire quarter before you even got started.

You sign a contract in September thinking you have plenty of time before your next annual filing. Then the kickoff call slips by two weeks, the data migration hits a snag nobody flagged upfront, and training is finally scheduled when two of the three people on your team are traveling. Suddenly, you're days away from the deadline, still trying to learn the software while eating dinner at your desk.

I've spoken with many FERC filers over the years, and this scenario comes up constantly. The timeline people are sold during the sales process and the timeline they actually experience are often two very different things. Projects drag on for months, there are implementation fees nobody mentioned during the demo, and by the time the professional services team finishes the XBRL tagging setup, you're already behind. More often than not, when you finally do have a question, the person on the other end of the support line has never actually filed a FERC form.

There's a difference between a vendor who understands XBRL as a file format and a vendor who understands what it actually means to prepare a FERC eForm under a tight deadline, with a CFO asking for status updates while you're still making changes to the filing on the day it's due. 

I joined Systrends in early 2025 because I understand that energy companies face reporting requirements unlike those in any other industry. For more than 25 years, Systrends has focused exclusively on helping energy companies meet those requirements. We only build software for the energy sector, and we still answer the phone when customers call.

Setup at Systrends Takes Hours, Not Months

Our eForms solution wasn't adapted from an existing filing platform. It was built specifically for FERC Order 859 by a team that had been solving FERC reporting challenges for more than a decade before the mandate was even announced.

When a new customer joins, our team pulls their historical XBRL data directly from FERC's submission history and imports it into their account. Setup takes hours. There are no implementation fees or professional service charges for XBRL tagging because the software handles it automatically for every input, every time you add information.

Most customers are trained and comfortable navigating our FERC eForms software within 1 to 2 hours. We build in four hours for training, but in practice, people don't usually need all of it. Your data lives in Excel until you're ready to import. The import templates are structured exactly like the FERC form pages. You import, the XBRL tagging happens in the background, you review your data, and you validate.

I was on a call with a customer recently who mentioned they had been making changes to their filing right up until the last hour before the deadline. With their previous vendor, that wasn't possible. There was a pencils-down point built into their process because the XBRL tagging had to be reviewed by the vendor's professional services team before a filer could submit anything. Every last-minute correction meant another review cycle and more time on the clock. When the tagging is built into the form itself, you can make changes right up until you file.

Brooke Schubach, who manages our eForms customer relationships, filed FERC eForms at a major utility before she came to Systrends. When you call with a question about a specific schedule, or you're trying to resolve a validation error on page 200, she's been in that exact spot before. That's true across our entire customer success team. 

See It With Your Own Data

Today, Systrends serves over 200 eForms filers and maintains a 99% customer retention rate. We believe that's a direct result of building software around the realities of FERC reporting rather than forcing filers to adapt their process to the software.

If you're currently sitting with FERC eForms software that feels like it was never quite designed for FERC, or you've been through a painful implementation before, let us show you what happens when your software works for you instead of against you. Less time fixing tags. Less time chasing validation errors. More time getting home for dinner with your family during filing season. Q1 filings are wrapping up now. If you want a different experience for the remainder of 2026, now is the time to take a look.

I've spent enough years on your side of this process to know that switching software is not something anyone does for fun. But I also know what it feels like to finally use software that was actually built for the work you're doing. If you'd like to see our FERC eForms software with your own data, we'd be happy to set up a personalized demonstration and show you why so many filers are making the switch.