Author: Felipe Dreher

Source: Gazeta Mercantil, 06/04/2009

São Paulo, April 6, 2009 - After a great effort to introduce the Electronic Invoice (NF-e), the Public Digital Bookkeeping System (Sped) project gains an extra breath with the entry of two new requirements: Bookkeeping Digital Fiscal (EFD) and Digital Accounting Bookkeeping (ECD).

The regulation creates an environment that allows the Secretariats of Finance and the IRS to cross-check accounting and tax information, identifying fraud and tax evasion and covering the entire production chain.

Preparing the IT infrastructure for regulation has been taking a lot of effort from corporations. Failure to adapt or send wrong data may result in fines and other penalties. For many companies, tinkering with systems to extract tax and accounting information is like opening a Pandora's box.

To get an idea of ​​the size of the "problem", the IOB tax consultancy heard 405 Brazilian corporations with revenues between R $ 3 million and R $ 7 billion. The study revealed that 83% of respondents made a mistake in these areas in 2007, with 56% of them having carried out transactions with suppliers or customers disqualified by the government.

The adaptations of the systems to Sped are hampered by the addition of parallel software, the acquisition of equipment and the expansion of communication links. The difficulties start with the complicated Brazilian tax legislation, pass through the need to clean and adjust the data inserted in the business management software (ERP), culminating, in many cases, in the need to change processes and treat tax and accounting information within the home systems.

“Just issuing NF-e, without having financial and inventory control, does not make the data close, nor does the company hire the Nobel Prize winner to take care of the accounting”, jokes the author of the book on Sped Big Brother Fiscal, Roberto Dias Duarte.

The expert points out that companies that have such coherent data are rare and predicts the arrival of a great wave of management in companies in Brazil. “This is about the insertion of legal authorities in the Knowledge Age”, he points out, referring to the need for greater rigor with the data imputed by corporations in their systems.

"The regulation imposes new control and management processes, information reliability, synchronization of records, consistency and integration between systems", lists Pedro Bicudo, managing partner of TGT Consult. However, adapting to the new rules has taken many hours to adjust the databases, with difficulties that pass through the deadlock in the definition of requirements by the government, resulting in extension of time and revision of budgets. "Until 2008, companies believed that it was enough to incorporate a system and all the requirements of Sped would be expired", says the specialist.

(Gazeta Mercantil / Caderno C - Page 2) (Felipe Dreher / ITMidia)