How new-age payment services take the pain out of the payroll for SMEs

Issued by IdeaEngineers for Sage Pay
Johannesburg, 12 Dec 2014

Large enterprises take seamless integration between their enterprise payroll systems and their banks for granted. However, many small and medium-sized companies have needed to manage the payment process manually until now because of the high costs of integrated enterprise software and a lack of affordable payment options.

That can be a major challenge for an SME that needs to pay employees scattered around the country ? but it is a challenge that affordable new-age payment platforms are addressing. Take management and ICT consulting placement agency Bayajula as an example.

Fact sheet

Solution: Sage Pastel Payroll & HR

Industry: Recruitment

Provider: Sage Pay

User: Bayajula

This company places candidates within specialist roles in selected industries. Its subcontractors are located on various sites countrywide, making it challenging to pay everyone conveniently and on time.

Says Hope Kheswa, finance and senior payroll administrator at Bayajula: "When it came to month-end, my directors and I would get stressed out. We would run around to various banks to ensure all our contractor staff got paid on the same day. And since that it was month-end, we would have to stand in long queues in the banks for hours on end. We were also wasting time and money driving around."

One major problem was that the system would reject the entire payroll batch file if there were any errors. That would mean Kheswa would need to comb the whole spreadsheet to find the error in the batch. "This was time-consuming and frustrating. In fact, it was a nightmare. The company directors and I would end up working till 11:30pm on nights when we had to finalise the payroll," says Kheswa.

Bayajula uses Sage Pastel Payroll & HR software. At one of the company's payroll workshops, Kheswa heard about how Sage Pastel Payroll integrates with the Sage Pay service.

She was particularly interested in how Sage Pay validates and checks the bank account and ID number details from the payroll. Any details that don't match are automatically flagged for rectification.

The simplicity of pushing a button to automate the payroll means that Pastel Payroll and Sage Pay does all the work for you. "Our contractors now all get paid at the same time. And funds clear immediately. There is no more stress regarding possibly having to stand in bank queues or waiting for funds to clear," says Kheswa.

Sage Pay

Sage Pay (previously Sage Netcash) provides payment solutions to small and medium-sized companies in South Africa. Salary and creditor payments, debit order collections or credit card gateway transactions are processed from one online account. Competitive transaction fees, and an easy to use online platform allows business owners to manage their business transactions from anywhere at any time. A full range of credit check and risk management services are also available from the Sage Pay account.

The Sage Group

The company provides small and medium sized organisations with a range of easy-to-use, secure and efficient business management software and services ? from accounting and payroll, to enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and payments. Customers receive continuous advice and support through the company's global network of local experts to help them solve their business problems, giving them the confidence to achieve their business ambitions. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and entered the FTSE 100 in 1999. Sage has millions of customers and more than 12 700 employees in 24 countries covering the UK and Ireland, mainland Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, Asia and Brazil. For further information please visit www.sage.com.

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