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A flexible benefits plan is like ordering a cup of coffee where the cashier will give you a plethora of choices and the barista will make each beverage according to your preferences. Hot or cold? Short, tall or grande? Regular, low-fat or non-fat? Caffeinated or decaffeinated? White, brown or Splenda? To make it even more personalized, you can even use your own mug. Flexible benefits plan—popularly known as cafeteria plan—has been around since the late 70’s, but most of the companies in the Philippines are still into traditional “one-size fits all” benefit plans. Recently, flexible benefits plan is getting traction. Why do companies nowadays need to consider adopting flexible benefits? Companies realize there is a war on talent—not just on hiring new employees but also on retaining good ones. Most, if not all, job seekers these days are concerned about not only the salary package but also about other the benefits employers offer. A good remuneration package will assure employers a better chance to attract the kind of talents they seek to bring in to their organization. BPO companies and other multinationals are disciples of flexible benefits. Some of the not-so-common benefits offered by these entities include health cards of the employees, which are only awarded to the top Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO), tuition subsidies, gym memberships, generous medical reimbursements per sickness on top of those medicines already covered by HMO during confinement, housing assistance, free overseas or local trips including generous pocket money for top performers, free lunch and dinner all year round for all employees, long-term overseas work secondments, etc. Flexible benefits plan addresses the issue of diversity among employees—from age, hobbies and life priorities. Having a workforce that includes a family person, a health buff, a food lover, a mountaineer, or a traveler will require companies a distinct set of benefits. But how does a company transition from the traditional one-size-fits-all benefits plan to a flexible benefits plan? First, for each employee, quantify the peso equivalent of the existing benefits plan. This process of data assessment is the most tedious part and it is the duty of human resources personnel to do so. Normally, this is only done when the management of the company has already decided on the transition to a flexible benefits plan. Secondly, identify the core benefits. These are benefits that are very important to employers such as health and group insurance, annual rank and file check-ups, executive check-ups, medical allowances, sick leaves, vacation leaves (minimum of five days under the Labor Code), among others. Core benefits are non-flexible and not convertible to cash. Hence, each employee must avail for himself or purchase these benefits. Lastly, identify benefits that are non-core and fully flexible. These can be in the form of transportation allowance, communication allowance, and vacation leaves more than five days (some companies provide 12 days of vacation leave in a year, which can be accumulated for two or three years). The company has to create or develop a platform where the employees can purchase the array of benefits. However, there are already a number of providers in the market that can assist a company in converting to a flexible benefits plan. They can set up or provide a platform where a wide array of benefits can be chosen. These platform providers help the companies in converting the peso value of the benefits into units or points. Say, if the converted peso value of benefits of a certain employee is P30,000 which is equivalent to 30 points, the employee has to use these points to avail first of the core benefits by purchasing them via the platform. Once the core benefits are purchased, the employee could now select and choose from an array of benefits that fits the lifestyle and preferences. Assuming further that the employee only utilized 25 points, the remaining five points can be converted into cash at the end of the fiscal or calendar year. However, if the employee purchased more than the allocated benefits, such excess will be deducted from his or her salary. Companies are always looking for competitive advantages. Flexible benefits plan is deemed by some companies as a leg up on the competition. There is a high cost for hiring and training employees and even higher cost for replacing good and potential leaders of the companies. Millennials are already in the workplace and they have different views on work and lifestyle. The flexible benefits plan is becoming more attractive in attracting and retaining talents. Ramil Nañola is a Partner, Audit & Assurance of P&A Grant Thornton. P&A Grant Thornton is one of the leading Audit, Tax, Advisory, and Outsourcing firms in the Philippines, with 21 Partners and over 700 staff members.

Imagine if majority of the working population are part owners of the company where they work. Imagine the enthusiasm and excitement this possibility can infuse into the workplace! Aside from an increase in productivity as a result of employees’ awareness of their share in the company’s profit, employee retention may also remain high and result in a stable succession. Employee ownership can be accomplished in a variety of ways: employees can buy shares of stock directly from the company, receive stock options at a specified exercise price, obtain shares through a profit-sharing plan, or this could be awarded as a bonus. Of these avenues, the employee stock option plan (ESOP) is, perhaps, the least popular route to increasing employee ownership. ESOP is a kind of employee benefit plan, similar in some ways to a profit-sharing plan. In an ESOP, a company sets up a trust fund, into which it contributes new shares of its own stock or cash to buy existing shares.

Going through audited financial statements nowadays is like reading through a long technical paper. It has become more difficult for management to prepare, more cumbersome for auditors to audit, and more complicated for users to understand for their management and investment decisions.

statements (FS) in relation to a resolution by the Board of Accountancy (regulator) requiring the submission of a “certificate” by the CPA preparer of the FS, which should be attached to the audited FS filed with the SEC and the BIR. Just for clarification, the FS preparer is a person separate and distinct from the external auditor. There have been continuing developments regarding the resolution but which do not cure the controversies that initially arose. As a long-standing member of the profession, I feel I have a responsibility to continue to express my thoughts on these persisting issues.

Under the Asean Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) on Accountancy Services signed in November 2014, CPAs in the Philippines may be recognized as such in other countries in the region, namely: Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Burma and Cambodia. Thus, a Filipino CPA may qualify to provide and render accountancy services beyond Philippine borders and across the Asean region.

In our jurisdiction, our Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy (BOA) has adopted our own external audit Quality Assurance Review (QAR) Program, but is yet to implement it. Our Securities Exchange Commission, on the other hand, has been working on the revision of its Rules on Financial Statements Reporting that will include, among others, the implementation of its own QAR System of external auditors accredited by the commission, but is yet to be finalized and approved for implementation. Pending the implementation and approval for a QAR Program/System, there is no local regulatory body that currently audits the auditors in this country, which situation may be good or bad, or should I say, may pose both challenges and/or opportunities to our regulators; to companies being audited or the auditees; and to CPA practitioners, whether big firms or small or medium practitioners (SMP).

In the recent years, auditing the auditors has become a global development in the accountancy profession amid news of inappropriate financial reporting or accounting scandals happening around the world. A number of national professional regulators have responded accordingly to these inauspicious events in the accountancy profession and have set up a regulatory body to oversee the conduct of an audit of companies by the auditors [hereinafter, interchangeably referred to as external auditors or Certified Public Accountants (CPA) practitioners] in their respective countries.

Undoubtedly, Senior Citizen Discount (discount) is a great benefit given to the senior citizens of the country. I am one of those benefited. The discount is 20 percent on the selling price plus exemption from 12 percent VAT, or a combined reduction of about 32 percent, depending upon how the VAT is computed in the invoice. That’s quite a lot.