Technology - Late rush for euro compliance.

More than half of British companies that believe they will be affected by the euro in the new year have yet to alter their accounting systems to comply with the currency.

A survey by accounting and procurement software company Coda, found 62% of companies believed the introduction of the euro on 1 January 2002 in 12 countries would affect their business. But with three months to go until they face possible transactions in euros, some companies are hurrying to comply.

‘We’re seeing a late rush for euro conversion across the UK,’ said Jeremy Roche, vice president at Coda.

‘Within the next six to eight weeks, organisations are going to find that even if they start to plan their euro conversion, timescales are going to be very tight.’

And in the worsening economic climate, Roche warned that IT departments might find there are no longer the resources available to make the change at the last minute.

The warning came on the back of the company releasing record financial figures for the first six months of the year ended 30 June 2001.

Despite a widespread slowdown in the accountancy software sector, the Coda group posted revenues of #19.7m from total revenues for Science Systems of #33m.

‘The figures are the result of the strategy we outlined when we were first acquired by Science Systems in April 2000, and continue the trend demonstrated in the group’s 2000 results, which covered CODA’s first nine months of trading,’ said CEO Graham Steinsberg.

He added: ‘CODA has achieved a strategic balance between licence sales, consulting and services and maintenance from existing clients. This is in direct response to the global marketplace where major corporations require high-level consultancy skills and support for bespoke or custom development services to run their business.’

‘The launch of CODA-Intelligence and the group’s strong move into the analytic applications market has opened up considerably more service opportunities. We are recruiting business intelligence specialists from around the world for our new BI practice in response to demand from our global clients,’ he added.

The results were partially due to the launch earlier this year of CODA’s business intelligence solution and supporting BI practice. With the launch of BI practice, CODA intends to make a major drive to become the number one provider of financial intelligence solutions.

The company also launches its CODA-Financials v8.1 in March, due to demand for self-service accounting and e-procurement.

Coda releases new showpiece www.accountancyage.com/IT/1113649.