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De Keur Group boosts payroll efficiency and sharpens reporting


Johannesburg, 14 Dec 2021

The De Keur Group, a family-run agricultural company in the Western Cape, has implemented Sage 300 People to automate its payroll processes and speed up management reporting to cater to its business's rapid growth. AWCape, a Sage Business Partner, provided support and consulting services for the implementation. 

The group is one of South Africa's top producers of high-quality fruits and vegetables and operates three companies: De Keur Estates, which manages four commercial farms; De Keur Packaging, the packing facility; and De Keur Marketing, the marketing division. Between the three companies, they employ up to 1 500 permanent and seasonal workers at any given time.

Fact sheet
Solution: Sage 300 People
Industry: Agriculture
Provider: AWCape
User: De Keur Group

In early 2019, the De Keur Group realised that its desktop-based payroll solution was no longer meeting its needs and that it would benefit from implementing a more modern solution. Based on its positive experiences with Sage as a payroll and accounting software provider, De Keur decided to implement the Payroll and Employment Equity modules of the Sage 300 People solution.

The group chose AWCape as its Sage implementation partner based on its proven experience in the agricultural sector. The system went live at the end of 2019, replacing the old software with a more flexible solution that enables De Keur to automate many tasks that used to be executed manually, such as importing earnings and deductions. 

Says Johan du Plessis, HR Manager: De Keur Group: "The desktop product we were using before Sage 300 People served us well for many years, but we realised that we could improve efficiencies and streamline our business by implementing a newer solution. Sage 300 People gives us a real-time view of our payroll, so we always have our finger on the pulse."

Easy reporting

"One of the key benefits of the system is that we can generate management reports at the push of a button and export them to Excel, giving senior executives the real-time information they need to support their decisions about the workforce. This was especially helpful during COVID-19 lockdowns when employee numbers and business requirements were in constant flux."

Single view of the pay run

With Sage 300 People, the payroll team at De Keur can manage weekly and monthly payrolls for all three companies from a single interface, rather than needing to log in separately for each company. This, on its own, helps them save a significant amount of time. Sage People 300 also spares the team the inconvenience of manually backing up data.

De Keur collects time and attendance information via a specialist solution for farms. This information is captured into Excel and automatically pulled into Sage 300 People to calculate wages. This, too, saves hours of manual effort each month for the farming group.

"Modernising the payroll system offers quick wins for companies that are running legacy systems or manual processes. With the right payroll solution in place, companies will know that their pay run is precise and their business is effortlessly compliant, enabling them to focus on strategic growth rather than administration," says Jeff Ryan, MD for AWCape.

Adds Gerhard Hartman, Vice-President, Medium Business for Sage Africa & Middle East: "With a modern payroll solution like Sage 300 People, gaining access to an intuitive set of tools that help you avoid potential errors and hours lost to manual tasks is just the start. You will also get powerful reporting tools that give you valuable insights and help you connect with your employees."

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Editorial contacts

Del-Mari Roberts
Group Marketing & PR Manager
Delmari.Roberts@awcape.co.za