'For companies to compete and comply with international standards and taxation standards, they will eventually need accounting software to do all of that,' said Anson Uy, president of Sagesoft Solutions Inc., the Philippines' authorized reseller of business management software provider SAGE Group PLC. PFRS compliance is required by the government and should not be taken lightly, said Uy during Sagesoft's recent release of the Sage ACCPAC ERP software.

Citing a study by Price Waterhouse Coopers, Uy said that 60 percent of Asian companies still do not know the impact of IFRS in their organization. 'We are actually evangelizing the standard and how companies can benefit from adoption of this,' he said. Uy observed that there is an abundance of nonqualified accounting software in the market. He said that several companies

Sagesoft visited in fact had 'half-baked' implementations of an accounting system.

The market still needs education, said Uy, because most companies still think that PFRS compliance just means manipulation of the balance sheet and the income statement when it entails changing their practices and having to deal with certain challenges. 'What if, say, the management is trying to keep off-balance transactions?' he said. He added that there are also companies which only have software implemented for accounts receivable (AR) or sales and neglect the payroll side or other transactions like the cost of manufacturing or cost of distribution.

Uy is optimistic and sees companies starting to migrate to compliance systems and starting to change their business processes. 'Eventually, companies will start becoming more competitive and growing their business through acquisition of software rather than probably hiring more people,' he said.