NDT Inspection Management ERP in Billings — Certification, Calibration and Work Orders in One System
Atlantis NDT ERP is inspection-management software for NDT service companies, inspection contractors and QA departments operating in Billings, USA. It replaces the spreadsheet stack most inspection businesses run on: technician certification currency, equipment calibration control, inspection scheduling, multi-crew work orders, client asset registers, job costing and audit-ready document retention — on one fully customized platform with 30+ business apps behind it.
Modules inspection companies actually switch for
- Certification tracking — SNT-TC-1A / ISO 9712 / NAS 410 currency with computed status, 90-day expiry warning tasks, email alerts and blocked double-booking.
- Calibration management — instrument, block and probe calibration intervals with ISO 17025 traceability chains.
- Work order management — multi-crew, multi-site dispatch with mobile offline field capture.
- Document control — procedures, written practices and technique sheets under ISO 9001 revision control.
- Asset management — NDT equipment by serial number with issue, return, calibration and maintenance history.
Integrations
Atlantis ERP has an open REST API, so it connects to SAP, Maximo, NetSuite or any other system that accepts API connections; each integration is scoped with you during implementation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Atlantis NDT ERP suit an inspection company based in Billings?
Yes. The platform ships pre-configured for inspection and testing businesses — ASNT SNT-TC-1A and ISO 9712 certification tracking with expiry warnings and blocked double-booking, equipment calibration due-date control, work-order routing across multiple crews and sites, and client-ready reporting. Regional settings, currencies, tax treatment and language for USA are configured during onboarding rather than sold as an add-on module.
How long does implementation take for a mid-size Billings inspection contractor?
A typical 20–60 technician inspection business goes live in 6–10 weeks: week 1–2 discovery and data migration mapping, week 3–5 configuration of certification, calibration and work-order modules, week 6–7 pilot with one crew and one client contract, week 8–10 rollout and training. Historic certification records, calibration certificates and client/asset registers are migrated from spreadsheets or the incumbent system as part of the implementation.
Can it replace the spreadsheets we use for technician certification and equipment calibration?
That is the most common reason inspection companies adopt it. Every technician's method-level qualification, vision-exam date, practical and general exam records and on-the-job hours sit against a written practice, and each certificate carries a computed status, with 90-day expiry warning tasks, email alerts, timesheet warnings and blocked double-booking. Equipment calibration is tracked the same way — due dates on every flaw detector, thickness gauge and reference block raise warnings before they lapse. That removes the two failure modes that most often cost inspection firms a client audit.
See it on your own workflow
Free 30-minute walkthrough using your actual job types, certification matrix and client reporting formats. Affordable, accessible, fully customizable — request a demo and tailored quote.
Related: Atlantis NDT ERP · NDT inspection software · inspection management software · Digital Twin in Billings · NDT reporting software.
Built for any business that runs on operations
Most companies do not fail at their craft. They lose time, margin and goodwill in the gaps between the tools they use to run the place — a quoting spreadsheet that does not talk to the job sheet, a job sheet that does not reach accounts, and a compliance folder nobody can search when a client asks. Atlantis closes those gaps by putting the whole operation on one platform, so information is entered once and everything downstream stays in step.
What you can run on it
- Sales and CRM — leads, quotes, follow-ups and the pipeline that tells you what next month looks like.
- Projects and job costing — plan the work, track the hours and materials against it, and see the margin while the job is still live rather than at final account.
- Field and service teams — dispatch, schedules, mobile capture that works with no signal, and sign-off from site.
- Inventory and purchasing — stock, suppliers, reorder points and goods receipt, joined to the jobs that consume them.
- People — records, qualifications and licences with renewal reminders, timesheets, leave and payroll.
- Quality and documents — procedures and forms under revision control, with the audit trail an inspection or accreditation body actually asks for.
- Accounts — invoicing, expenses, multi-currency and the reporting your accountant stops chasing you for.
Affordable, accessible, fully customizable — and we mean each word
Affordable because the whole suite is included rather than sold to you a module at a time, and because implementation is done by people who have run operations rather than by a chain of subcontractors. Accessible because it runs in a browser and on a phone, works for a small team on day one, and does not need a specialist on staff to keep it alive. Fully customizable because your process is the thing that makes you competitive — the software should bend to it, not the other way round.
Industries we configure for
Service businesses and contractors, manufacturing and fabrication, trading and distribution, laboratories and testing houses, engineering consultancies, construction and facilities, and asset owners across energy, marine, aerospace and infrastructure. Inspection and testing is where we started, and it remains the sector we go deepest in — but the platform underneath is general-purpose, and most of what it does has nothing to do with inspection at all.
What happens when you get in touch
A short conversation, not a sales sequence. We ask how the business runs today and where it hurts, show you the platform doing that work, and send a written quote shaped to your region, your team size and the scope you actually need. No obligation, nothing to install first, and no pressure to decide on the call. Reach out and tell us what you are trying to fix.
Related: business management platform · inspection management software · choosing the right category of software · modules · by industry · asset integrity platform. Book a free consultation.
The Billings NDT services market, from the provider's side
Billings runs on refining for its size like few US cities — multiple refineries in and around town processing Canadian and Rockies crude, plus sugar, power and ag-industrial plants.
API unit and tank programmes at the refineries set the rhythm; the surrounding industrial base and pipeline systems fill the calendar between turnarounds. For the companies doing this work, the operational load concentrates around the refineries in Billings and Laurel and the product pipelines heading east and west — and the back office that keeps crews certified, equipment calibrated and reports moving is what decides which providers grow.
Why turnaround-driven inspection companies outgrow spreadsheets first
A refinery turnaround compresses everything a spreadsheet handles badly into one brutal window: dozens of technicians mobilised at once, every one of them needing current certifications and vision records the owner's contractor portal will check, equipment that must arrive calibrated with certificates in hand, and thousands of examination records that become the client's permanent inspection history. NDT inspection software earns its keep here or nowhere — when the planner asks which UT crews are available with in-date certs for a unit coming down next month, the answer has to come from the system, not from someone's memory of a shared drive.
The quieter failure is revenue: turnaround work is bid tight, and without job-level costing an inspection company discovers which scopes lost money only at year end. An ERP built for inspection work ties technician hours, equipment days and consumables to each work order as it happens, so the margin conversation happens while the job is still running.
What an ERP built for NDT companies covers in Billings
Turnaround markets punish disconnected tools hardest, so in Billings Atlantis is deployed as one operational spine — NDT inspection software and the business layer on the same records:
Certification and personnel tracking. Every technician's methods, levels, expiry dates, eye-exam currency and Written Practice records under SNT-TC-1A or CP-189 — with the audit view a client's quality department expects, ready before they ask.
Equipment and calibration management. The instrument register with calibration due dates, certificates attached, and traceability that satisfies ISO 17025-minded reviewers — so nothing leaves the shop out of date.
Work order and crew scheduling. Who is qualified, who is available, what the job needs — matched in one view, from a single technician call-out to a full turnaround mobilisation.
NDT reporting. Findings captured once — in the field or the shop, offline if needed — flowing into code-referenced report templates, so the deliverable ships while the competitor is still retyping field sheets. This is the inspection management software layer clients actually see.
Quoting, invoicing and job costing. Hours, equipment and consumables tied to each work order as they happen, so every job shows its true margin and the next bid learns from the last one.
Cloud-based, mobile in the field, and fully customizable to how your operation already works. See the NDT inspection software platform · the full business management suite · talk to us about Billings.
Frequently asked questions
Does Atlantis understand how Billings inspection companies operate?
The platform is built by ASNT Level III practitioners around the workflows above — certification tracking, calibration, field data capture, code-referenced reporting — rather than adapted from generic field-service software. Regional specifics like the client mix around the refineries in Billings and Laurel and the product pipelines heading east and west shape configuration, not custom development.
Can we keep our existing report formats and client requirements?
Yes — report templates, client-specific deliverables and your Written Practice structure are configuration. The system adapts to how you already serve your clients; switching software should never mean renegotiating what your clients receive.
Related: why inspection companies replace spreadsheets · NDT ERP vs generic ERP · compared with NetSuite.
Billings is a major refining center for the northern Great Plains with integrated oil and gas operations. The city's inspection environment focuses on crude processing, fuel distribution infrastructure, and pipeline systems in challenging terrain. An NDT ERP serving this market has to carry the evidence those operators audit against — with technician certification, equipment calibration and inspection records tied to the job that used them.
Operators including Cenex LLC, Frontier Oil, NorthWestern Energy set the pre-qualification bar their contractors inherit. The system of record for that evidence is the ERP, not a spreadsheet a technician maintains between jobs.
Source: Per-city industrial and compliance research file; ASNT SNT-TC-1A employer certification framework
| Factor | What applies | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Sectors served | Refining, Oil & Gas, Energy | Sets which methods, report formats and codes the system must handle |
| What must be retrievable on demand | Technician certification currency · equipment calibration status · the report against the asset that generated it | These three are what an auditor asks for first |
| Deployment | Cloud or on-premise · configured to the codes above · offline field capture | Field crews lose connectivity; the record cannot depend on it |
What must an NDT ERP track for inspection firms in Billings?
Technician certification currency by method and level, equipment calibration status on the day of use, and every inspection report bound to the asset and job that produced it. Those three are what an audit asks for first, and they are the three a spreadsheet loses.
Can an inspection company in Billings run this alongside its existing accounting?
Yes. The ERP owns operations — jobs, technicians, equipment, reports — and pushes finished invoices to the accounting system, which keeps the chart of accounts, tax and reconciliation. For US firms that usually means QuickBooks; the split is documented in the QuickBooks integration guide rather than forcing a migration nobody asked for.
Does it work offline for field crews in Billings?
Yes. Field capture runs offline and syncs when the device reconnects, because turnaround decks, tank interiors and remote sites have no usable signal and a record that depends on connectivity is a record that gets rewritten from memory hours later. Offline capture is the difference between a contemporaneous record and a reconstruction.
How long does implementation take for a firm in Billings?
The configuration follows the codes and workflows above rather than a fixed template, so the timeline is set by how much existing data has to be migrated and cleaned — certification records and calibration history are the two that consume the time. Firms usually run the first job cycle in parallel before cutting over.
What happens to inspection records if a technician leaves?
They stay with the asset and the job, which is the point. Employer-based certification ends when the holder leaves, but the reports they signed remain part of the asset's inspection history and are still auditable. A system that stores records per technician rather than per asset loses that history on every departure.
Related: the NDT ERP overview, personnel certification tracking, equipment calibration tracking, QuickBooks integration and the RFP requirements checklist. Firms preparing for an audit should also read the NDT programme gap assessment.
NDT ERP for Billings: three refineries and a service territory measured in hundreds of miles
An NDT ERP for Billings has to handle two things at once: three refineries within a short drive of downtown, and field jobs spread across Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. The software must keep technicians certified and equipment calibrated for demanding refinery clients, and it must also cost and bill travel, standby and per diems properly on jobs several hours away.
Yellowstone County has three refineries: Phillips 66 in Billings, Par Pacific's Billings refinery in Lockwood (which Par Pacific took over from ExxonMobil in June 2023, with about 62,000 barrels a day of capacity), and the CHS refinery in Laurel. Each processes roughly 60,000 barrels a day, and together they pay a large share of the county's property taxes. Beyond them, a Billings contractor's week can include pipeline and gas-plant work in the Bakken and the Powder River Basin, power generation work, and fabrication-shop inspection in town. That combination of concentrated refinery work and very long drives is what shapes the software requirements here.
The Atlantis ERP solution is a fully customized ERP for NDT and inspection companies, set up and supported by Atlantis NDT (founder Anoop Rayavarapu, ASNT NDT Level III). It is affordable, accessible and fully customizable. Book a Billings demo.
What is the best NDT inspection software for a company covering Montana and the northern Rockies?
The best NDT inspection software for a Billings company works offline in the field, records travel and standby accurately, and keeps certificate and calibration evidence ready for refinery gatekeepers. The Atlantis ERP brings offline reporting, timesheets with work types, fleet records and certificate tracking into one system.
Distance changes the economics. A two-hour UT thickness job at a compressor station might need four or five hours of driving each way, a night in a motel and a meal allowance. If those hours and expenses are not captured against the job, the job loses money while looking profitable on paper. In the Atlantis ERP, timesheets record work type as inspection, travel, standby or setup, along with method, billable flag, rate multiplier, site, client and equipment serial, and go through approval. Field expenses and per diems are recorded in the expenses app and re-billed to jobs.
Connectivity is the second issue. Much of eastern Montana and the neighbouring basins has patchy coverage. The offline field app, an installable web app, works without signal, stores drafts and photos locally and syncs later, with method picker, photo capture, on-screen signature and PDF preview, so reports are written at the location rather than reconstructed that night. See timesheets and expenses.
Technician certification tracking software for refinery pre-qualification
Technician certification tracking in the Atlantis ERP records every certificate by scheme, level, method, certifying body, sector and dates, and computes its status automatically: active, expiring soon (90 days), expired or revoked. Supported schemes include SNT-TC-1A, CP-189, ISO 9712, PCN, CSWIP and others.
Three refineries in one county means three contractor-management systems, each asking for evidence of qualification before a technician gets a badge. Holding each technician's certificates, OJT hours, training hours, exam results and attachments in one record means the office can respond to each refinery's request quickly and consistently. Certificate templates per scheme set validity in months, whether a vision test and exam are required, and minimum OJT and training hours.
Vision tests are tracked with near vision (Jaeger J1/J2), far vision, colour perception and contrast, examiner, clinic, certificate file and expiry. Examination sheets hold general, specific and practical scores against a passing score of 70 percent by default. The employee NDT profile shows highest level, methods certified, radiation safety training, radiation badge number and medical fitness expiry.
Warning tasks are created 90 days before a certificate or vision test expires. Daily email alerts cover technician certificates, calibration certificates and company certifications, with recipients, look-ahead days and resend interval set by you. That is useful in a small market where one or two lapsed certificates can leave you short on a method when a refinery calls. Timesheets warn when a technician's certificate is not valid. See certificates.
Calibration management software for equipment that spends its life on the road
Calibration management in the Atlantis ERP holds full calibration records (provider, certificate number, standard, range, uncertainty, accredited-lab flag, pass, fail or conditional result, next due date) and a calibration certificate register with the lab's accreditation number, the PDF, status and expiry alerts.
Billings is a long way from most calibration labs, so instruments spend real time in transit. Knowing a gauge's due date early enough to ship it and still have it back before a refinery job is the difference between planning and scrambling. Each item is tracked by serial number with type, assigned person, condition, asset tag, firmware, accessories and lifecycle status, including in calibration, in repair and rented out, so you can see at a glance what is actually available. Purchasing flags vendors as OEM, dealer or calibration lab and links purchase order lines to a specific equipment serial.
Equipment spends days in trucks through Montana winters and summers. The maintenance log records preventive and corrective work, repairs, cleaning, firmware updates and probe replacement, with condition before and after. Issue and return goes through supervisor and manager approval and records condition at both ends. Reservations prevent clashes, and team assignments warn when assigned equipment is out of calibration. Consumables such as couplant, penetrant, developer, MT particles and PPE are tracked with reorder levels and a low-stock flag, which matters when the nearest supplier is not next door. See asset management.
Crew dispatch and scheduling software for long-distance mobilisation
Crew dispatch in the Atlantis ERP runs jobs through planned, dispatched, in field, submitted and closed, blocks double-booking of technicians and equipment serials, and records site GPS coordinates and mobilisation and demobilisation dates. For a company sending crews hundreds of miles, mobilisation dates are as important as the job dates.
The technician availability calendar holds assigned, leave, training, sick and unavailable days and blocks overlaps. The dispatcher sees each technician's status, current assignment, utilisation and next available date in calendar, kanban or list view. When a refinery in Laurel wants a crew on Monday and a pipeline job near Williston runs a day long, the dispatcher can see immediately who is free, who is still on the road and which instruments are coming back.
The fleet app records vehicle purpose, whether it can carry radioactive sources, its transport licence number and expiry, and its assignment to a project and driver with dates and mileage. Mileage by project gives you real travel cost per job, which feeds your next quote. Projects record job type, site, client PO, contract, methods, codes, scope, acceptance criteria, assigned equipment and technicians, and safety induction and work permit fields, so a crew driving five hours does not arrive without the required induction. See team assignments and fleet.
NDT reporting software for refinery, pipeline and shop work
The Atlantis ERP supports 17 report types with separate numbering: UT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ECT, IRIS, PAUT, MFL, TOFD, PWHT, PMI, hardness, UT thickness, ferrite, holiday and coating, and computed radiography. Reports move through draft, in progress, review, approved and sent, with inspector, reviewer and approver signatures.
A Billings company's mix is broad. Refinery work covers UT thickness readings by direction, ECT and IRIS on exchanger bundles, MFL on tank floors, and PMI, hardness and PWHT on repairs. Pipeline and gas-plant work leans on RT or computed radiography and PAUT for welds, and holiday testing on coatings. Fabrication shops need VT, MT and UT on structural and pressure welds. Method-specific fields are built in: UT probe calibration table, RT source, technique, IQI type and placement, MT technique and particle type, PT method and developer, and PAUT focal laws. Weld and job lines record defect type and orientation, and each report records work order, request, WPS, contract, drawing, procedure and standard references.
Versioned company templates in Excel, Word, PDF or HTML carry your logo, header and footer, and Excel templates are filled automatically by mapping fields to cells, which helps with each refinery's own data sheets. A third-party or authorised inspector's name and signature can be captured. A REST API for field devices handles jobs assigned to the technician, equipment issued, report submission and sync. See NDT reports and Digital Twin Reporting Software.
Procedure control for a small Level III team
The procedure register records document number, revision, method, scope, material, applicable standard (such as ASME Section V), acceptance criteria and body text or an uploaded file. The workflow runs draft, submitted, reviewed, approved and published, with rejection and archiving, and approved revisions are locked with a full revision history.
Many Billings companies have one Level III, sometimes on contract, who is responsible for every procedure and often in the field. Email notifications and reminders to approvers mean pending procedures do not wait until that person is back in the office. The AI-assisted first draft, which falls back to a built-in template, gives the Level III a starting point for a new procedure that a refinery or pipeline operator has asked for; the Level III still reviews and approves it.
Every revision is kept as a snapshot with who prepared, reviewed and approved it and when, so an audit question about which revision applied to a job two years ago can be answered directly. Methods include UT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ET, TOFD, PAUT, LT, AE, hardness, PMI, CR, DR and more. See procedures and, for outside help, Level III consulting.
NDT quoting and invoicing software that captures the drive
Quotes in the Atlantis ERP record job type, site, project dates and applicable codes, built from NDT service products flagged with method and category, with an optional global discount, a branded PDF and online acceptance and signature that converts the quote to a sales order. Remote jobs should be quoted with travel and per diem lines that reflect what they really cost; the fleet mileage and timesheet history from past jobs gives you that figure.
Invoices carry the NDT project, job or PO number, site, invoice type and industry sector, with subtotals for labour, equipment and consumables. Lines carry cost centre, method, equipment serial, technician, rate type and days or hours. Travel and standby hours come in from approved timesheets with their billable flag and rate multiplier; expenses and per diems are re-billed to jobs. Taxes and payment terms are configured for Montana and any other states you invoice in during implementation.
The financial dashboard shows revenue, cost of sales, gross margin, operating expenses, EBITDA, outstanding invoices, bills and expenses over twelve months. Using cost centres, a Billings owner can compare refinery work in town with remote pipeline work and see which one is really carrying the business. Ask how we would set up travel and per diem billing.
Spreadsheets vs generic ERP vs Atlantis ERP for a Billings contractor
| Need | Spreadsheets | Generic ERP | Atlantis ERP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Travel, standby and inspection hours on one job | Separate sheets, merged later | Generic timesheets | Timesheet work types with billable flag and rate multiplier |
| Reports from sites with no coverage | Paper, retyped later | Usually online only | Offline field app with local drafts and photos |
| Refinery certificate requests | Search folders and email scans | Custom fields | Structured certificate records with automatic status and alerts |
| Knowing which gauges are away for calibration | Ask around | Generic asset status | Lifecycle status including in calibration and in repair, plus calibration register |
| Mileage per job | Fuel receipts | Generic fleet | Fleet assignment to project and driver with dates and mileage |
See NDT ERP vs generic ERP for more.
Affordable, cloud NDT software for small inspection companies in Billings
Most inspection companies in Billings are small or mid-size, and many compete with larger national contractors for refinery work. An affordable ERP helps them look organised to refinery quality departments without adding office staff. The Atlantis ERP runs in a browser and on a phone, includes the business apps, and is quoted on request.
Implementation usually starts with certificates and calibration, then moves to projects, dispatch and timesheets, and then to reporting and invoicing. Items that are not built in are configured during implementation. Dashboards show certificates expiring or expired, calibration due or overdue and issued equipment overdue for return. The CRM records service line, NDT service type, industry sector, site and estimated technicians and days, scores leads from 0 to 100, and can run drip email sequences, while the business card app turns a photographed card into a lead.
The Atlantis ERP has an open REST API and integrates with SAP, Maximo, NetSuite, QuickBooks or any system that accepts API connections, scoped per implementation. For 3D visualisation of inspection data, with indication mapping and thickness trends, see Atlantis Digital Twins. Training from Atlantis NDT is ASNT SNT-TC-1A based; see training and the Practical NDT simulator.
Frequently asked questions
Can the ERP bill travel time and per diems on remote jobs?
Yes. Timesheets record travel and standby as work types with a billable flag and rate multiplier, and expenses and per diems are re-billed to jobs through the expenses app.
Does the field app work where there is no cell coverage?
Yes. It stores drafts and photos on the device and syncs when a connection is available, with photo capture, on-screen signature and PDF preview offline.
Can it help us respond to three different refinery contractor portals?
It keeps each technician's certificates, vision tests, training and OJT hours and attachments in one structured record, so the evidence each refinery asks for can be pulled quickly. Direct integration with a client system is possible through the open REST API where the client allows it.
Does it warn when equipment is out of calibration?
Yes. Team assignments warn when assigned equipment is out of calibration, and the calibration certificate register sends expiry alerts.
Can we keep QuickBooks?
Yes. The open REST API integrates with QuickBooks and other systems that accept API connections, scoped during implementation.
How much does it cost?
Pricing is quote on request, based on your users, scope and integrations. The business apps are included rather than sold separately.
How do we start?
Send us your technician list, a recent refinery report and a recent remote-job invoice, and we will show you them in the system. Request a quote for Billings.