Two names keep landing in the same search. Red River and FACTOR are both the whole back office for a company that buys fuel by the load and sells it on, both have been around longer than most of the people running them, and both are on a lot of shortlists this year for different reasons. I sell one of the systems below, FastDragon, so I have put ours last and told you what it does badly along with what it does well.
Why these two get searched together
An independent shops for back office software about twice in a working lifetime. When it comes time, the names that surface are the ones the neighbor down the road runs. Red River and FACTOR are two of those names, and the people searching for both are usually one of two operators.
For the FACTOR operator, the trigger is often the change of owner. PDI Technologies bought FACTOR from WR Hess in September 2018, a few months after it bought DM2. It had bought FireStream and the Pinnacle ERP business behind FuelSmart in 2017. A change of owner is a natural time to compare.
The Red River operator is shopping for a quieter reason. Red River Software of Fargo, North Dakota has been at this for more than forty years and says thousands of operators rely on its software. RRFuel is very good at what it was built around: route delivery, propane and heating fuel, degree days and K-factors, prepaid contracts, and a truck with a meter head on it. An operator whose business grew sideways into commissioned agents, company stores, and three sets of books starts comparing systems against the business he ended up with.
Different reasons, same shortlist at the end of it. Everything below comes off vendor pages read on October 25, 2026, the companies' own announcements of the acquisitions, and twenty years of sitting in these offices while the month closed.
What the two are actually shaped for
Before you can find something similar, be honest about which half of these products you use. Both cover the same core: a bill of lading comes in, an invoice goes out, tax gets figured per gallon, the supplier gets settled with, and the books have to tie. They differ on the second half.
RRFuel names its wholesale features plainly on its own pages: bills of lading, AP, AR, state-specific fuel schedules tied to inventory, DTN price imports, customer-specific pricing, margin and analysis reports, and EDI files for state fuel tax. Beside it sits the retail half: customer tanks, degree days, K-factors, prepaid heating contracts, delivery dispatch, volume pricing. The store side is separate products: CSMinder back office, Vanguard POS, and Pioneer Card Processor.
FACTOR is an ERP for petroleum marketers that began in 1977 as a division of WR Hess in Oklahoma City. When PDI bought it in 2018, PDI described it as accounting, c-store, wholesale, and fuel management software serving 330 customers across North America.
So the honest question is which half you spend your Tuesdays in. A marketer whose day is consumer route delivery wants a delivery-first system. A marketer whose day is rack-to-dealer wholesale with agent stations and a store wants a distribution-first system with the ledger underneath it. Those are two different shopping lists.
Four questions that narrow it to two vendors
Answer these before you take a single call. They cut a list of seven down to two most times.
- Do you deliver to consumers on a route? Heating oil, propane, keep-full accounts, tank monitors and degree days. Yes puts RRFuel and ADD Energy E3 at the top. See what is a keep-full program.
- Do you sell off the rack to dealers? Posted rack in, DTW or cost-plus out, split loads, freight and tax passed through. Yes puts COMPAS Commander, FastDragon, PDI and iRely in play. See rack pricing explained.
- Do you own or settle stores? Company stores, commissioned agents, dealer sites you supply and bill. Yes puts the store back office at the top of the demo list. Ask each vendor to run a store month-end on your own data. See what is a commissioned agent.
- How many sets of books does your accountant keep? One company, or the operating company plus the real estate LLC plus the trucking entity. More than one puts multi-entity at the top of the demo list. See multi-entity accounting for petroleum.
The seven, side by side
| System | Shaped for | What stands out |
|---|---|---|
| RR Fuel | Fuel wholesalers, jobbers, retail propane dealers and marketers, route delivery | Degree days and K-factors, prepaid contracts, DTN price imports, EDI tax files |
| PDI Enterprise Wholesale | Fuel and petroleum marketers | More than 250 marketers by PDI's count, cardlock, motor fuel tax with Avalara |
| ADD Energy E3 | Marketers running their own delivery fleet and mixed product lines | Raven driver tablet, financials on Microsoft Dynamics or another package |
| COMPAS Commander | Wholesale petroleum distributors | Tank-level inventory, fuel excise tax reporting, AIMS bought Petro Data in April 2026 |
| iRely Petroleum | Multi-line petroleum wholesalers, propane distributors, carriers and c-stores | Rack price feeds, multi-state tax filing, cloud hosting |
| Series2K | Store-heavy operators and jobbers who supply their own stores | Major POS brands, QuickBooks posting, subscription price |
| FastDragon | Jobbers, marketers and station owners with a mixed operation, one site to dozens | Sold by the module, ledger by entity, live margin on allocation |
The closest match to Red River, by half
If you use the delivery half, ADD Energy E3 is the nearest peer. ADD Systems has been family owned in New Jersey since 1973 and serves propane, heating oil, wholesale petroleum and stores off one platform. The Raven tablet puts the delivery ticket in the driver's hand and posts it back. The thing to check is the financial layer: ADD recommends Microsoft Dynamics GP or Business Central for the books and says many clients run other accounting packages, so ask how that piece is licensed and supported. Cargas Energy is worth a call too if delivery is nearly the whole business.
If you use the wholesale half, COMPAS Commander and FastDragon are the peers at the same size of company. AIMS cites more than 50 years of financial software for wholesale petroleum distributors, and it announced on April 1, 2026 that it had bought Petro Data, maker of Complete Jobber. FastDragon is ours and is sold by the module. Ask each to run a split load and a state return on your own data in a demo.
If stores are most of your business, Series2K is the one to look at. I worked there for over a decade and still send people that way when the fuel is a sideline to the stores. It runs from one station to more than a thousand, lists Verifone, NCR, Gilbarco and Wayne as partners, and posts to QuickBooks.
The closest match to FACTOR
The wholesale back office PDI markets on its site is PDI Enterprise Wholesale. PDI says more than 250 petroleum marketers rely on it. Its page lists order processing, fuel management and accounting, warehouse inventory, cardlock, equipment usage, a customer web portal, and motor fuel tax in partnership with Avalara.
The other peers for a FACTOR operator are COMPAS Commander, ADD Energy E3, iRely, and FastDragon. Whichever three you shortlist, the nine questions to put to each are in leaving FACTOR, DM2, FireStream or FuelSmart, and PDI's acquisitions since 2016 are listed in alternatives to PDI.
Where FastDragon fits, and where it does not
FastDragon is built for the jobber, marketer and station owner, from one site to dozens, whose business grew sideways. Wholesale, commissioned-agent stations, company stores, compliance records, real estate, fleet and the general ledger are each a switch, and the bill covers the switches that are on. The supplier's NAXML file lands as lines with the taxes carried through as written, and a supplier total that disagrees with its own lines gets flagged before anyone pays it. Allocation matches each purchase to the dealer who took it, by grade, and puts the margin on the screen while you are still looking at the load. Every settlement, dealer invoice and supplier payment posts as a balanced journal entry, so the month closes out of one set of numbers and the accountant works in one system.
Consumer heating oil routes run in the same books on Tank Wagon: degree days, K-factors relearned at every fill, budget plans and prepaid heating contracts. The heating oil buyer's guide covers what to test. See the screens on the Fuel Jobber page.
What to do with your shortlist
Pull one real day out of your current system. One transport load, split across three customers, with freight and two states of tax on it. Pull the supplier invoice that went with it and the month-end journal it landed in. Take that same paperwork to every vendor and make each one run it in front of you, on their screen, while you watch. Count the entries. Ask what happens on the morning the rack feed is late.
Then get the first-year number in writing: subscription or licence, conversion, training days, support, per-site and per-user fees, any price feed the vendor resells, the contract term, and what it costs to leave. Bands and real figures are in how much fuel software costs, and the order of operations for the move itself is in switching fuel software.
Questions people ask
What software is most similar to Red River Software?
For the route delivery and propane side of Red River, ADD Energy E3 is the closest match, with Cargas Energy close behind on the delivery piece alone. For the wholesale rack-to-dealer side, COMPAS Commander from AIMS and FastDragon cover the same ground at the same size of business. For an operator who also runs stores, Series2K and FastDragon both cover the store back office and the fuel.
What are the alternatives to FACTOR now that PDI owns it?
PDI bought FACTOR from WR Hess in September 2018. The wholesale back office PDI markets on its site is PDI Enterprise Wholesale. Other systems to compare are COMPAS Commander, ADD Energy E3, RR Fuel, iRely, and FastDragon. Ask each one to show your own split load, your own state return, and your own month-end close before you pick.
Why do people search for Red River and FACTOR together?
Both names sit in the same conversation an independent has once every fifteen or twenty years. For FACTOR customers the trigger is often the change of owner. For Red River customers it is often a business that has changed shape, with agents, stores, and more than one company. Different reasons, same short list at the end of it.
Is there a like-for-like replacement, or does the office have to change how it works?
Expect the screens to change and the work to stay recognizable. A bill of lading is still a bill of lading and a state return is still due on the twentieth. What usually changes for the better is how many places a number gets typed. Ask each vendor to run your own paperwork in their demo and count the keystrokes yourself.
How long does the move take?
Six weeks is normal for an operator with one entity on a modern platform, and a couple of months when there are several entities, a lot of history, or store data coming across. Most of the time goes to data: customers and price formulas, supply contracts, tax setup per state, open receivables. Get the live date in writing and ask whose staff does the data work.
Bring your load and your state return. We will run both live
Sources
Read October 25, 2026, on each company's own site: Red River RRFuel, Red River Fuel Dealers, Red River Our Story, PDI Petroleum Wholesale, PDI Enterprise Wholesale, ADD Systems, ADD Financials, AIMS COMPAS Commander, AIMS home, iRely Petroleum, iRely Wholesale Transports, Series2K, Cargas Energy. PDI press releases: FACTOR, September 2018; DM2, May 2018; FireStream, April 2017; Pinnacle ERP assets, January 2017. FuelSmart under Pinnacle: PDI customer support. The Petro Data purchase: AIMS announcement, April 1, 2026.