Back Office Processing/ Shared Services

An international research study conducted by the META Group found Filipino accountants to be "among the best in the world." In addition to this, In the World Competitiveness Report published in 2001, the Philippines ranked 16th of 49 countries, with India at No. 38, for International Business Experience.

The country's highly trainable, English-proficient, IT-enabled quality management manpower is behind the continued success of the back office processing and shared services sector. Every year, this pool of efficient workers is replenished with 80,000 to 100,000 fresh graduates of accounting and other business-related courses, on top of the 2,500 to 3,000 new Certified Public Accountants that pass the board exams annually. These CPA's are adept in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Accounting Standards (IAS) for financial reporting, which are used in Europe, the U.S. and Japan.

The sector consists of multinational companies with shared services in the Philippines and independent back office processing providers.

The key players in the first sub-sector include AIG Business Processing Services, Inc., which performs check preparation, accounting and disbursement services for member companies; Caltex Shared Service Center (CSSC), which provides accounting and financial services to Caltex business units in the U.S., UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand; Maersk Administrative Center Ltd., which does general accounting documentation for the company's 11 branches; and Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., which performs a host of accounting and financial services for P&G affiliates in Southeast Asia, North America, Korea, India, Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Japan.

Under the second sub-sector are such companies as Business Process Outsourcing International, which provides finance and accounting, as well as payroll and benefits administration services; SPI Transact, which provides a range of processing services to banks, insurance companies, mortgage originators, and other transaction-intensive industry segments; and Summersault, which specializes in claims processing and disbursement, finance and accounting, and sales and marketing services.

The back office processing and shared services sector offers the following services:

• Accounting and bookkeeping
• Account maintenance
• Accounts receivable collection
• Accounts payable administration
• Payroll processing
• Asset management
• Financial analysis and auditing
• Inventory control and purchasing
• Expense and revenue reporting
• Financial reporting
• Tax reporting
• Financial leasing
• Credit card administration
• Factoring and stock brokering
• Revenue management
• Transaction processing
• Business data processing
• Database management
• Business Intelligence
• Network management
• Disaster recovery
• Supply chain management
• Sourcing and procurement
• Logistics
• Warehouse and inventory management
• Transaction management
• Customer relationship management
• Human resources administration
• Sales and marketing