ERP Requirements Consultant, Philippines

The structure of a Philippine ERP specification

A specification is narrower and stricter than a BRD. It does not explain why the business works the way it does; it lists what the system must do and how each point will be proven. For a Philippine company, the document I prepare normally holds:

• Document control: version, contributors, reviewers, approvers and a change record.
• Footprint: each entity, each branch with its own invoice series, warehouses and any operation that bills overseas clients.
• Process chapters: selling and collecting, buying and paying, stock and inter-branch transfers, service or project billing, and record-to-report in pesos with any parent reporting needs.
• Statutory register: BIR-facing lines and system registration support, every one reviewed by your advisor.
• Behavioral requirements, interfaces, migration and reports defined by their fields.

Each line carries an ID, an owner, a source tag showing whether it comes from local compliance, the parent's policy or operations, a priority and trace references. The interviews and process maps that produce the content sit on my ERP business analyst page for the Philippines. For how a requirement list is built in general, see ERP requirements gathering.

BIR-facing lines and who owns registration work

BIR expectations for invoices, books, withholding and electronic reporting have been evolving, so the register records what your accountant or tax advisor confirms, not my reading of the rules. My contribution is wording that a tester can check and that assigns responsibility. Examples of the style:

• For each supplier payment that your accountant marks as subject to withholding, the system produces the withholding certificate in the layout they specify.
• Certificates received from customers can be logged against the payment they relate to and listed for any period.
• Data for the summary lists of sales and purchases your accountant prepares can be extracted per period without manual re-keying.
• Services billed to overseas clients in US dollars are recorded with the peso equivalent the books require, and the treatment your advisor confirms.
• If your accountant says the computerized system needs registration or acceptance, the implementer supplies the system description, sample outputs and other documents the application calls for, within the contract scope.
• Books and supporting records remain retrievable for the period your advisor states.

The registration line matters most. Without it, an implementer can deliver a working system and treat registration paperwork as extra work. The lines also prepare for the e-invoicing direction without guessing at its final form.

Non-functional requirements for branches, privacy and hosting

Transactions tend to get close attention in Philippine specifications; behavior across islands, under audit or around personal data gets far less. Correcting that after signing is expensive, so I turn each point into a direct question for bidders:

• Hosting: where production data and backups reside, which regions are offered and whether a parent company or client contract restricts the choice.
• Privacy: who can see employee and customer personal data, how government-issued identification numbers are masked, and how records are removed when no longer needed, in line with the Data Privacy Act as your advisor reads it.
• Access: roles limited by branch and entity, approval for supplier bank detail changes and separation between preparing and releasing payments.
• Audit trail: any edit to a master record or a posted entry shows who made it, when, and what the old value was.
• Availability: what a provincial branch must still record during an internet or power interruption, and how that data catches up.
• Support: response during Philippine business hours, and how statutory updates are delivered.

Responses are recorded as fully, partly or not covered, together with the bidder's explanation.

Interfaces, migration, priority and the trace chain

Interfaces get their own numbered lines. Common Philippine entries include journals from the payroll product that handles SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG contributions, bank payment and statement files, billing data from client or operations systems in service businesses, and reporting packs for a foreign parent in its chart of accounts. Each line states direction, timing, owner and the action when a transfer fails. Details of the method are on ERP integration.

The migration chapter says what moves from QuickBooks, a local package or spreadsheets: masters, open items, stock by branch and history depth, with a named person to sign the reconciliation.

Priorities use four words. Must stops go-live if missing. Should can wait behind a documented workaround. Could is a nice-to-have. Later goes on a list for a second phase. Each must carries a written reason, and requirements from the parent and from local compliance are tagged separately, so a conflict between them is visible rather than buried.

Trace references tie each line to the demo step that tested it, the bidder's answer, the design note, the test case and the UAT result. That chain lets you prove, after go-live, whether a missing feature was never asked for, never promised or never built.

Using the specification with bidders, and gaps worth catching

In an ERP RFP, every bidder marks each line as available as shipped, configurable, needing development, needing a third-party product or unavailable. The signed baseline and the winning response then become a contract annex, and each later change follows a numbered request with its impact and approver. The ERP selection consultant page for the Philippines explains how those answers are scored.

When reviewing an existing Philippine specification, I look first for these gaps, each a risk to cost or compliance:

• No line assigning system registration support, so the paperwork lands on finance late in the project.
• Withholding covered for payables but not for certificates received from customers.
• Branch invoice series mentioned without saying how branches work when the connection is down.
• US dollar billing in service operations described without the peso accounting it needs.
• Parent reporting requirements arriving after the contract, because the parent was not asked.
• Training or quick guides in Filipino listed with no named reviewer.

For my broader remote work here, see the Philippines ERP consulting page.