ERPNext is an open-source ERP that can run on a laptop at home, for a self-employed professional, or for a micro business with just a few staff. That accessibility changes everything.

At Comfac, we’ve trained hundreds of students and OJTs to deploy ERPNext. The point isn’t just that ERPs are now within reach of MSMEs—it’s that the barrier has shifted from “Can I afford it?” to “Do I value the information?” Because once you digitize operations, you automate, and you get near real-time reports, the old excuses disappear.

The question is never whether information is important—it’s how much evidence people need before they stop putting up barriers against having data on all their operations.

The Mindset Shift

We’re not here to convince people that data matters. We’re here to demonstrate it. Hundreds—soon thousands—of businesses will use ERP systems because OJTs trained with us will go out and implement them.

Every student who struggles to set up ERPNext teaches us more. Every problem they face, we face with them. That’s how we adapt, and that’s how we become the most forward-thinking problem-solvers in getting organizations to an ERP system.

We don’t drag horses to water and watch them refuse to drink. We show, by example, that we know how to solve the problems others are stuck on.

The Self-Interest

Comfac’s self-interest is obvious. By training so many OJTs, we build a workforce and a community who know how to digitize and automate MSMEs. That creates both reach and depth—reach, because the skills spread across industries, and depth, because every case adds to our expertise.

If an ERP is free and can run on a 3,000 PHP thin client, what’s the point of gatekeeping it? Let everyone who can use it—use it and benefit from it. The more MSMEs adopt ERPNext, the stronger the economy becomes. In what equation is Comfac better off gatekeeping, when millions of Filipinos can benefit from something free and open source?

If an organization doesn’t value:

• Our work ethic
• Our open-source commitment, and
• Our advocacy of uplifting people through accessible automation,

…then they will not value us. Worse, they’ll put our students and people at risk. Those who only see “digitization hype” as a way to cut staff, or who think in zero-sum terms, are not partners worth working with.

The Reality of Data

Here’s the reality:

• If extracting data takes mandays of encoding, your decision-making slows to months. You’re helpless to adapt.
• If you have ERP and IT systems, you get the data in under an hour, someone can validate it, and you can make critical decisions before you hit the iceberg.
• The data is shared—your team sees it, not just you. That means more people can recognize the iceberg, more perspectives can guide action, and you can delegate.

That’s how teams actually rest, recover, and focus on the future—by not being the single bottleneck for information.

The Bottom Line

We can’t convince people to value data with words. We can only demonstrate it, through example, through training, and through the OJTs who deploy real systems in real MSMEs.

We eat our own dogfood. We practice what we preach. And that’s how Comfac changes the way the game is played.