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Pastel Mobility in Motion

November 7, 2012 in Latest News

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Why use Pastel My Money?

Manage your personal finances online, for free!

Track your spending: Use our expense categories or add your own. Pastel My Money will remember these every time to help you analyse your expenses.
Control your budget: Easily create a budget based on your historical spending. Compare your actual spending to your budget so that you know what is left.
Get total visibility: See all your bank balances and transactions in one place. With Pastel My Money you finally get the entire picture.
Reach your goals: See how your spending decisions affect how much you have left each month. You will know what you can do today to save more tomorrow.

https://www.pastelmymoney.co.za/

Watch the video on the blog, click here

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Softline Pastel launches portal for its cloud applications

November 6, 2012 in SME/SMME

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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……

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Seeking help with your tax return

October 18, 2012 in Latest News

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The submission for manual tax returns has now passed. The deadlines for efiling submissions is the 23rd of November 2012 and in this post we’ll be exploring why it is sometimes necessary to seek out professional advice with your tax return.

There are many examples of incorrect tax returns which have ended in large sums of money being owed to the South African Revenue Service, and even court proceedings.  A recent article on the Moneyweb news website states that in one such case, the tax court in Pretoria had to consider an objection by a tax paying company against assessments issues by a SARS auditor. Of course, SARS had issued this assessment based on the tax return submitted by the company and their accompanying financial statements.

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The SARS Interim PAYE Reconciliation season is open for all SA businesses

October 3, 2012 in Entrepreneurship, Latest News, SME/SMME

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SME companies should brace themselves for the interim PAYE reconciliation that is due from 01 September 2012 to 31 October 2012. Employers are required to fully reconcile and submit their employee tax certificates and EMP501 reconciliation for the period 01 March to 31 August 2012, by the end of October 2012.

Employers need to make use of the new SARS e@syFile software release, e@syFile V 6.1.0. to successfully submit their interim PAYE reconciliations. If they don’t, they will not be able to transfer their data electronically as the new software release will not recognise the old format.

“Companies have no choice,” says Philip Meyer, technology director of payroll and HR software developer Softline Pastel Payroll, part of the Softline Group and Sage Group plc.

Legislation dictates that each and every employee in a company must be registered on the SARS database with their own tax number. Therefore individual income tax reference numbers must be reflected in the interim PAYE reconciliation. If one or more tax certificates do not include the tax reference number, companies will receive an error notification in e@syFile and with effect from 01 September 2012 companies will be penalised.

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The importance of small business in South Africa

August 31, 2012 in Entrepreneurship, Latest News, SME/SMME

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The National Small Business Chamber (NSBC) alongside official sponsor Nedbank, has been promoting the concept of Small Business Friday. The initiative, which culminates on Friday the 7th of September, aims to promote and support small business throughout South Africa.  Literature on the official website states that the future of the SA economy and the solution to unemployment lies in assisting small business to grow and thrive.

This concept has been close to our hearts since the inception of Softline, and as such, we will be supporting Small Business Friday during the course of next week through the posting of helpful tips, hints and advice for small business owners.

As a starting point, we’d like to point out a few opportunities for small business to gain recognition in SA through several awards taking place at the moment. The first of which is the Small Business Awards run by Softline Pastel and 567 Cape Talk. The following was taken from the official press release issued by the awards organisers:

The small business sector in South Africa has the potential to make a significant contribution to economic growth and employment. It is through innovation that better service and increased employment becomes a natural consequence. The annual Small Business Awards in partnership with 567 Cape Talk and Softline Pastel, focuses on supporting and fostering this entrepreneurial culture and have done so since 2008. Entries for the 2012 nominations have now opened.

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Stop Hunger Now!

July 26, 2012 in Giving Back

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The sales team from Softline Pastel donated their time and year end function money to donate 1800 meals to Stop Hunger Now! The team will go out with volunteers over the next months to help with the distribution of their donated food parcels and see first-hand what difference their donation will make.

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The Individual tax season kicks off…

July 17, 2012 in Latest News

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The Tax Season commenced on 01 July 2012. Taxpayers can now submit their IT12 Returns for 2012. To avoid fines or penalties, individuals need to file their tax returns within the SARS deadlines, for the period 01 March 2011 to 29 February 2012.

Submission Deadlines

Please take note of the submission deadlines below:

•Manual returns have to be posted or delivered to local SARS branches by 28 September 2012.

•Non-provisional taxpayers may use SARS eFiling until 23 November 2012.

•Provisional taxpayers have more time and may submit electronic returns via eFiling until 31 January next year.

Tax Return Guide 

Visit www.sars.gov.za  to obtain the 2012 Tax Season electronic guide to help with submitting your IT12 Returns.

Help-You-eFile

A Help-You-eFile service will also soon be launched by SARS. The Help-You-eFile service is an innovation that will provide taxpayers with access to contact centre agents while the taxpayer is online. SARS Agents are able to see what taxpayers are doing and assist with the completion of the tax return. SARS has also embraced mobile technology and this year individuals with mobile devices will also be able to….

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BEE123 Panel Debate

July 13, 2012 in BEE

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By Thulani Fakude - Business Development Executive at BEE123

Thulani Fakude (BEE123 Business Development Executive) , Kganki Matabane (Director, Transformation and Internal Affairs – BUSA), Don Mkhwanzi (Member of the Presidential B-BBEE Council), Herman Radali, (BMF JHB Chair) Saul Symanowitz (BEE123 Divisional Director) and Nkululeko Silimela, (BMF JHB EXCO)

BEE123, a subsidiary of Softline Pastel, hosted its first Panel Debate on the 12 June 2012 entitled “18 years on…has BEE missed the mark”.  Co-hosts for the evening were the Black Management Forum.

The event was massively oversubscribed with approximately 300 guests in attendance.

The panellists’ comprised the following thought leaders in the BEE space:

  • Don Mkhwanazi, BEE Pioneer and Member of the Presidential B-BBEE Council
  • Kganki Matabane, Director, Transformation and Internal Affairs – BUSA
  • Teddy Daka, Executive Chairman, Tedaka Technologies
  • Lerato Ratsoma, Managing Director of Empowerdex
  • Jacob Maphutha, Director of BEE Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement, DTI

The debate was facilitated by respected and prominent journalist and  3rd Degree executive producer Debora Patta.

Debora Patta

Deliberations on the topic highlighted that, BEE has faced a number of challenges/ shortcomings but remained an essential policy to transform South Africa’s economic landscape. Panellist’s also encouraged companies to move from a tick- box approach to an attitude/culture of transformation that embraces BBBEE implementation as a mechanism aimed at addressing inequalities and mobilising the energy of all South Africans, to ensure that our country  achieves its full economic potential wherein together  we contribute to  sustained economic growth, development and social transformation.

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Technology: adapt or die (Part1)

June 28, 2012 in Uncategorized

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By Steven Cohen, Managing Director Softline Pastel, part of The Sage Group plc.

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I recently realised that the term ‘cloud computing’ is not as broadly understood as I had assumed. Maybe it’s because I work in the tech sector that these buzz words are part of my everyday vocabulary but I was surprised to discover that 77% of professional accountants claim to have no understanding of what accounting in the cloud is.

This statistic comes from independent research we recently conducted. And what is interesting to me is that while a large proportion of professional accountants don’t know what cloud computing is, 53% would recommend an online accounting product to their SME clients. So, there’s obviously confusion out there because cloud computing and working with an online application is exactly the same thing. And accountants are clever people, so if they are grappling with the principles of the cloud, so must many others!

Cloud computing 101

When we refer to the cloud we’re talking about where the program is hosted, or stored, and the answer is that it lives on the web and not your computer. It’s the same as your Facebook account where all your information is stored ‘somewhere on the internet’.

Facebook (although I am not an avid user) is a great example. When you’re using it, I guarantee that you don’t think about whether it’s the latest version or if the information you see is the most current. You just know that the answer is yes and that somebody clever ‘out there’ is taking care of everything!!

Well the ‘out there’ is the cloud! Perfectionists will criticise me for this – but the heart of the argument is that the cloud refers to the web or the internet – they’re basically the same thing.

So, what are the advantages of the cloud?……

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