June 26, 2018

A software developer, Mr Austin Agbakor, on Tuesday called on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to adequately utilise accounting software packages and applications to improve their excesses and expenses records.

Agbakor told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that poor use of software made many SMEs to have improper records.

“It is not about bringing packages, it is about what the market demands.

“We are talking about organisations managing their expense and excess records.

“I can tell you that below 40 per cent of these companies have proper accounting records,” he said.

Agbakor said that the future would lie on technology.

“Even hospitals need software for management of patients’ records, likewise academic institutions, for students’ records.

“It is to help us to transform everything we are doing from the normal way to a more digitalised and orderly way.

“We need software to do whatever we need; there is no way we can do without a software.

“Now, we are talking about cloud; before, there was nothing like cloud. We were talking about physical drive to save our data, but now, countries’ advancements have gone beyond physical hardware drive.

“They can now save their data in the cloud and Nigeria can move with the trend,” Agbakor said.

According to Agbakor, the challenges to software development in Nigeria are inadequate finance and training support.

Agbakor said that training support would increase developers’ knowledge on new technologies.