SA small business should automate HR solutions to compete globally

Head of Sage HR Africa, Gerhard Hartman says that South African small business should implement automated payroll and HR solutions to keep pace with global competition and more stringent labour and tax laws.

“Without an automated payroll solution, most businesses will find it difficult to perform accurate calculations and file tax submissions on time,” Hartman says in a recent press release. “With African governments putting more focus on governance and tax compliance than ever before, responsible companies must have robust and accurate ways to capture and report on payroll and HR data.”

According to a Sierra-Cedar 2014–2015 HR Systems Survey White Paper, 97% of companies worldwide have adopted payroll applications. Moreover, 50% of the respondents were planning on increasing their spending on HR tech the year ahead. “This shows that African businesses that don’t modernise their environments risk falling behind the trend,” says Hartman.

This is especially the case for African companies finding themselves competing against multinationals that have established IT infrastructures, and as governments throughout Africa put in place more stringent labour and tax laws.

“Without an automated payroll solution, most businesses will find it difficult to perform accurate calculations and file tax submissions on time,” Hartman says. “With African governments putting more focus on governance and tax compliance than ever before, responsible companies must have robust and accurate ways to capture and report on payroll and HR data.”

An automated solution will take care of calculating the complex formulas, generating the relevant compliance reports, and keeping accurate records, sparing the person responsible for the payroll reams of manual paperwork, Hartman says.

Once a robust payroll solution is in place, organisations can start looking at features such as Employee Self-Service, which enables further efficiencies and helps companies to improve engagement with their employees, says Hartman. New technologies such as the cloud mean that it can be surprisingly quick, affordable and easy for companies to roll out electronic HR and payroll processes that transform their businesses.

Image by Travis Wise via Flickr