Check your software to ensure MPF role, companies urged

In preparing to meet the requirements of Hong Kong's mandatory pension scheme when it goes into effect at the end of next year, company managers will have to decide not only which service provider to hire but also which computer software to use in helping them calculate fund deductions.

For most companies, upgrading their accounting and payroll software to handle the Mandatory Provident Fund should not prove difficult or expensive, experts say. Still, managers will need to make sure their in-house software is upgraded to become MPF-ready, or that their bank or insurance company provides the MPF components.

Employers using payroll software should check with the software makers to see whether these companies would be issuing upgrades that could calculate MPF deductions, said Dennis Ng, North Asia managing director of United States-based Progress Software.

'If companies already have certain IT infrastructure, I don't think they would have a lot more to add,' he said.

Software vendor SAP is among those with plans to add MPF functions to its payroll program R/3.

Final details for MPF, under which employers will be required to contribute 5 per cent of salaries to pension funds and employees may contribute up to 5 per cent, will be released by early next year.