McCarthy Motor Group streamlines payroll with VIP People

McCarthy Motor Group, one of South Africa's largest motor retailing groups, employing 12 000 employees, has successfully completed the implementation of VIP People, an integrated payroll, HR and employee self-service solution, developed by Sage VIP particularly for the enterprise market.

McCarthy's Payroll office was in need of a system that was cost-effective, user-friendly, allowed for integration between costing ledgers and the HR and leave system, which at the same time could align with other company systems.

"We chose Sage VIP as a solution provider for our specific payroll needs because they have excellent payroll and HR infrastructure, and are experts when it comes to legislation and the day-to-day maintenance of a payroll system," says Shelley Viljoen, Payroll Manager at McCarthy.

Implementation started in December 2012, and within three months, the company had transferred all employees onto the new system.

Factors contributing to the successful implementation were a detailed project plan with set deliverables and timing, excellent support from the VIP team, and the thorough training of McCarthy's payroll consultants. Training involved basic classroom training, together with personalised on-site training. This also included a user acceptance process.

Viljoen said since the implementation of VIP People, the company's payroll processes are more streamlined and automated. "We have a big staff turnover and the solution definitely assists in managing all our complex HR and payroll needs. We can also now minimise payroll processing times and maximise payroll auditing times," says Viljoen.

VIP People's leave management system was another value-add to the company's HR processes, and it can now effectively and electronically monitor where staff are possibly abusing their leave privileges.

McCarthy's payroll team wants to implement a paperless office, and the new system allows them to capture and edit any data electronically. Viljoen also complemented VIP People for the provision of extensive management reports, which comes as a standard with the system.

"We are looking forward to the employee self-service (ESS) system, which will simplify the process of leave applications and approvals, and it will allow employees to print their own payslips," concludes Viljoen.

"Innovation is one of the core values at Sage VIP and therefore we continuously develop software that is fresh, forward-thinking and in line with world-class standards," says Sandra Swanepoel, sales director at Sage VIP.

Sage VIP's People product is the ideal solution for diverse and often quite complex payroll and HR challenges faced by South African organisations, especially those with a large number of employees. "It is powerful, simple, flexible, feature-rich and highly customisable."

"From the start of the project, it was evident that the McCarthy team was dedicated to the successful roll-out of this project and showed the necessary internal discipline to ensure that the project's milestones were met. They had their subject experts involved, and with Shelly Viljoen driving the process, they formed a strong partnership with the VIP project team," concludes Annelie Visser, national sales manager at Sage VIP.

For more information, visit www.vippayroll.co.za.