Softline Pastel launches portal for its cloud applications

Softline Pastel, South Africa’s leading developer of business and accounting software, today launched a portal for its range of online applications. The platform, known as Sage Pastel Online, provides the entrepreneur on-the-go one central location to access the company’s bouquet of cloud-based business tools, making running a small business a little easier.

Pastel Accounting launched South Africa’s first online accounting program, My Business Online, in May 2009 and since then has brought several online innovations to the local SME market.

“Times have changed,” says Steven Cohen, managing director of Pastel Accounting. “We have entered an age where technology is pervasive, allowing us more mobility than ever – and business has to be part of the revolution to remain competitive.”

The portal can be found at www.sagepastelonline.com and offers online accounting, payroll and marketing services – allowing business owners the freedom to run their businesses at any time from anywhere. Additionally, Pastel’s BEE one-stop-information-hub, BEE123 and brand new free-to-all-users personal finance applications are also available in the same location.

Pastel My Business Online is a full-function accounting program, designed specifically for the small business owner. All accounting lingo has been changed to simple English, so even the layman can manage the business’s books. It’s a multi-user system with dashboards, graphs and drill-downs to source transactions that provide a bird’s eye view of the business. The system allows users to manage customers, suppliers and inventory items and keeps track of sales and purchases. It comes with a comprehensive list of reports so that month-end management packs are quick and easy to create.

Pastel My Payroll Online is a simple payroll solution that allows SME owners to pay their employees anywhere, anytime.  It’s a SARS compliant system aligned to even the most complex legislation, including PAYE and UIF. Users can also process leave online with leave types already defined according to the BCEA requirements. Like, My Business, My Payroll contains no confusing jargon.

Did you know 70% of SMEs don’t have a website, or at least one with limited marketing capabilities or integration with smartphones and social media. Pastel My Webspace is an online marketing engine for SMEs with an HTML5 website builder designed for optimal marketing and e-commerce capabilities. In addition My Brand will manage users’ search engine optimisation, and mobile and social media integration. My Brand effectively integrates everything for the user and provides an all-in-one e-marketing service with analytics, social media insights, and creating and mailing a fully dynamic newsletter with marketing feedback.

“Moving your business applications online is a must for anyone who wants to ensure that they remain at the cutting edge of service delivery,” said Cohen at the launch event that celebrated the mobile business of the future.

As part of Pastel’s drive for business mobility, it has also formed a relationship with Samsung Enterprise Mobility. Selected Samsung devices will now come preloaded with the My Business Online Android app and Pastel is a reseller of Samsung’s SIII, Note and Tablet devices; all preloaded with a year’s free access to Pastel My Business Online. The devices will be available for purchase via the Pastel Webstore.

Cultural fit vital when assessing new candidates for employment

Of all the elements that need to be considered if a company is to be able to select the best candidate for a specific position, the most difficult to gauge or judge correctly is the culture fit.

“It’s also one of the most important elements in any evaluation of potential employees,” says Grant Lloyd, managing director Softline Pastel Payroll.

Companies need to have a feel for and have an understanding of the company culture. Lloyd says culture is usually driven from the top down and is established by the upper echelons of management. However, it is never cast in stone and can change with the appointment of a new CEO or management team.

“There are many influences on company culture, including the alignment of the company vision, the business objectives and the business ethics,” says Lloyd. “Whoever is conducting the recruitment needs to have a feel for the company vision, objective and ethics because they not only shape the company culture but also the various job descriptions and purposes aligned to them within a specific department.”

Key performance areas (KPAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) are also important in assessing the culture fit and ensuring the candidate will be able to deliver what the business needs.

“This is complicated by the fact that not all companies have integrated the business culture and the company values with their KPAs. While these historically were used to measure individual performance, the process is now open to much wider interpretation,” adds Lloyd.

“Employers need to clearly understand the purpose behind each individual recruitment and employment process. The information for this understanding must come from the person that the new recruit will be working for.”

People involved in the hiring process often sway towards taking on someone with a similar personality to their own, which is not necessarily the best fit and hence it is important to also involve line managers and team leaders to provide another perspective.

He adds that people often perceive themselves incorrectly and that the characteristics most sought after in recruitment are trust, respect, honesty, accountability, integrity and consistency.

Honesty throughout the recruitment process is paramount because it saves time and money for both parties. The company should state exactly what it is looking for and the applicants need to present themselves honestly. A complication is the fact that divisions within companies tend to develop sub-cultures and the candidate fit has to match.

“Personality traits also need to be examined, and this is a whole science in itself. But it is an important area and it is very useful to know a candidate’s personality as it is invariably a strong indicator of suitability and culture fit,” says Lloyd.