Direct savings
Independent auditing eliminates overcounting and withholds payment for what was not delivered. Every unduly billed FP that goes unpaid is immediate, measurable savings.
Function Point Analysis — FPA
Pay for what your institution receives, not for the effort vendors claim
Function Point Analysis is the international standard that measures, objectively and auditably, the size of the software your administration contracts. This page explains — jargon-free — what it is, how it works and why institutions that measure spend better.
2M+FP counted and audited by Eficácia
+100government contracts delivered without restrictions
IFPUGofficial partnership and certified CFPS specialists
FPA in 1 minute
The "square footage" of software
No one contracts the construction of a building paying "per bricklayer hour," with no blueprint and no measurement. You contract by square meter — an objective measure any inspector can verify. FPA does exactly that for software.
Public works
Measured in square meters. The price per m² is known, comparable across builders and verifiable by inspectors.
Public software
Measured in Function Points (FP). Every query, form, report and integration the system delivers to users has an objective size, defined by an international standard (IFPUG).
Measures delivery, not effortFP counts what the user receives — screens, queries, reports, integrations — not how many hours the vendor claims to have worked.
Technology-independentJava, .NET, low-code or mainframe: the same system has the same size. That makes proposals and vendors comparable.
An international standardThe IFPUG method (ISO/IEC 20926) is used worldwide and adopted as the reference by the Brazilian Federal Government in the SISP metrics guide.
Why measure?
An IT contract without metrics is a blank check
Without objective metrics
- You pay for hours declared by the vendor itself
- Impossible to compare proposals or vendors
- Oversight has no technical criterion to certify deliveries
- Unpredictable budget — the same system costs "whatever"
- Fragility before audit courts and control bodies
- Knowledge stays with the vendor, not the institution
With FPA in place
- You pay for delivery measured by an international standard
- Price per FP comparable across bidders and institutions
- Inspectors certify based on documented, auditable counts
- Predictable budget: size × contracted unit price
- Alignment with the best practices control bodies expect
- Historical database and documentation stay with the institution
Illustrative example (hypothetical figures): an institution contracting 10,000 FP per year at
R$ 600/FP executes R$ 6 million. If independent auditing finds 5% overcounting in the vendor's
measurements — a common finding —, that is R$ 300,000 a year that stops being
unduly paid. Independent measurement typically costs a fraction of that.
What your institution gains
Concrete benefits for public management
Budget predictability
With a contracted price per FP and a historical consumption base, annual IT planning becomes simple multiplication — no more guesswork.
Safety before control bodies
Brazilian procurement law (Law 14,133/2021) requires results measurement; federal regulations consolidate metrics as best practice. Measuring protects the manager who signs.
Transparency and auditability
Every invoice is backed by a documented count, traceable down to the functionality. Any audit — internal or external — finds the complete trail of the expenditure.
Real comparability
FP is the same yardstick for everyone: compare bidders at proposal time, vendors during execution and your institution against market benchmarks (price per FP).
Institutional asset
The systems baseline, the historical count database and up-to-date documentation stay with the institution — reducing dependence on any single vendor.
How it works
The measurement cycle, from request to fair payment
A simple flow that fits the working process the institution already has — including agile methodologies.
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1
Demand
The institution opens a service order: a new system, a maintenance task, an improvement.
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2
Artifacts
Requirements, screens and business rules document what will be built — the "blueprint."
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3
Counting
The software factory counts the FP of the delivery following the IFPUG manual (CPM).
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4
Independent audit
Certified CFPS specialists audit the count. Discrepancies become payment withholdings before the invoice.
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5
Acceptance
The inspector certifies based on a traceable technical report — not on trust.
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6
Payment and history
Invoice = validated FP × contracted price. Everything feeds the institution's historical database.
The cycle repeats with every service order — and the historical database makes each new contract more precise, cheaper to plan and harder to overbill.
Who does what
Who counts, who validates, who decides
Software Factory
CountsDevelops the software and presents the FP count of its own delivery, with the calculation memory.
Independent metrics firm
ValidatesA specialized company — such as Eficácia — audits every count with certified CFPS/IFPUG specialists and flags discrepancies and withholdings.
Contracting institution
DecidesReceives management reports, certifies with confidence, pays for what was validated and accumulates the historical database.
The golden rule of metrics: whoever bills cannot be the only one measuring.
The separation between who counts and who validates is what turns FPA into a control instrument —
and that is precisely the role of the independent metrics factory.
Management intelligence
What FPA reveals about your IT
Once in place, the metric becomes a continuous source of indicators no time-and-materials contract can offer.
R$ / FPYour institution's real unit cost — comparable with other institutions and the market
FP / monthEach vendor's effective productivity, measured rather than declared
BaselineTotal size of the systems portfolio — the inventory of the institution's digital assets
% maintenanceHow much of the budget goes to maintaining versus evolving — input for modernization decisions
WithholdingsAmounts identified and not unduly paid — the visible return of independent auditing
Reference priceA solid basis for estimating new tenders and justifying figures to control bodies
Proven results
Volume audited by Eficácia in public certificates
Function points counted and audited, certified in technical capability certificates issued by the institutions themselves.
Function Points certified by institution (technical capability certificates)
TJSP
MEC
TRF1
ANATEL
MinC
CAPES
TJSP
2019 – 2023Five uninterrupted years of counting by CFPS specialists at Brazil's largest court. Successive renewals are the best endorsement of trust.
MEC
2017 – 2020IFPUG + NESMA + SISP in the same contract, 45,467 FP baselines and MEETRIKA as the management tool — with CMMI Level 3 and ISO 9001 processes on record.
CAPES
2014 – 2015Audit of the counts submitted by the software factory — exactly the independent verification role described on this page.
ANATEL
2013 – 2016Analysis and documentation of undocumented legacy systems and counting in agile/SCRUM projects.
"All services delivered with satisfactory performance, with no technical or commercial restrictions."
— A statement common to the technical capability certificates issued by the contracting institutions
What you need to have
Documentation required for counting
Counting uses the artifacts a well-managed project already produces. The better the documentation, the faster and more precise the count — and implementing FPA itself raises the quality of the institution's documentation.
Legacy systems with no documentation? Not a blocker: Eficácia performs the functional
survey and documentation of the system as part of the work — as done at ANATEL and MinC.
The institution ends up with the system counted and documented.
- Requirements or user storieswhat the system must do, from the user's point of view
- Prototypes or screenswireframes, mockups or the system's own screens
- Data modelentities and relationships — the "map" of the information
- Business rulesvalidations, calculations and conditions the system applies
- Interfaces and integrationsdata exchanges with other systems and institutions
- Change documentationfor maintenance: the before and after of the change
Support materials
Download and start structuring metrics at your institution today
Artifacts prepared by Eficácia from best practices applied in real contracts (in Portuguese).
Counting spreadsheet — worked example
An Excel model with a commented detailed count: data functions, transactions, complexities and totals.
Counting artifacts checklist
A verification list to prepare a system's documentation before counting — new development, maintenance or baseline.
Institutional Metrics Guide template
The commented structure of the document that standardizes counting at the institution — the first formal step of implementation.
MEETRIKA — count management system
The EFOR Group platform that manages counts, service orders, SLAs and withholdings. Available as SaaS. Request a demonstration for your institution.
Honest objections
"But isn't FPA...?" — answering what every manager asks
Much of the resistance to FPA comes from poorly run experiences or lack of familiarity with the process. Here are frank answers to the most common objections.
Talk to a specialist"Isn't FPA just extra bureaucracy?"
Quite the opposite: FPA uses documentation a well-managed project should already produce. What it adds is control over payment — and it removes the unproductive bureaucracy of arguing hours and staffing with the vendor on every invoice.
"Doesn't measuring make the contract more expensive?"
The metrics service typically costs a small fraction of the development contract — and pays for itself through the discrepancies it identifies. Not to mention the non-financial gain: legal certainty for whoever certifies and signs.
"Does FPA work with agile methodologies?"
Yes. Counting applies per sprint, per release or per delivery — the Brazilian SISP guide covers agile contracts, and Eficácia did exactly that at ANATEL. Agile changes the delivery rhythm, not the need to measure it.
"Does my team need to become FPA specialists?"
No. Certified specialists do the counting and auditing. Your team needs to understand just enough to manage — and knowledge transfer (training, workshops and the Metrics Guide) is part of our work.
"My systems are old and undocumented. Now what?"
Implementation starts precisely there: surveying and documenting the legacy systems, building the baseline and the portfolio inventory. The institution gains the metric and the documentation it didn't have.
"What if the vendor disputes the count?"
Good sign: it means there is an objective criterion to discuss. Discrepancies are resolved technically, in light of the IFPUG manual and the institution's Metrics Guide — not in a commercial arm-wrestle. The final word is always grounded and documented.