Who are we and why are we here

SmartPayroll was founded by the shareholders of SmartBooks Ltd in 2003 with a vision of transforming the manual and time consuming payroll administration process.

Asantha Wijeyeratne, a qualified accountant and the founder of SmartBooks, had worked for the previous 10 years with the SmartBooks business to provide a simple cashbook solution to SME’s in New Zealand. With a background in small business accounting, Asantha knew the challenges small businesses faced in managing the large range of IRD compliance with payroll and the challenges of cashflow and limited resources. SmartPayroll automated the process of payroll calculation, payroll payment and IRD compliance – filing and paying PAYE, into one simple web based solution. That was only one part of the equation. Asantha and his team recognized that having the best technology solution without people to help users set up and be supported, was next to useless! SmartPayroll is about both a great technology solution AND a great team of people who are there to help users not only to get up and running but be there when things get “complicated”.

Phil Richards joined the company as a shareholder and director in 2004. Phil was a qualified Chartered Accountant and had started his own successful business which culminated in winning the Action Entrepreneur of the year in 2004. The company was driven by a desire to help improve the lives of business owners by making compliance much easier. Working in collaboration with New Zealand’s leading payroll company Datacom and utilising SaaS (Software as a Service) technology, SmartPayroll was created with a single big idea: make payroll fast and easy.

SmartPayroll works with a wide range of businesses – from a one man band employing just 1 staff member to large national chains employing over 100 staff. SmartPayroll is used across most industries in New Zealand.

Our key partner, Datacom help to provide our customers with a technology solution second to none. As New Zealand’s leading technology company Datacom provides the much needed security and peace of mind in managing the ever increasing volumes of confidential and sensitive payroll data. SmartPayroll has also begun a process of integrating to accounting software with developing a link to Xero the number one SaaS solution. This will assist our customers to seamlessly share data between the two solutions.

Everyone who works at SmartPayroll is committed to doing whatever it takes to make payroll easy for our valued customers. This is something that comes naturally because they are real people who care and can empathize with those who use SmartPayroll. The team comes from a wide and varied background but are united in their desire to help customers. They know how stressful it can be when a busy customer has just 15 minutes to sort out some technical issue so that the staff can get paid. The whole customer care ethos is captured by the saying that is used by the team – Loving our customers forever.

We recognise that there is always room for improvement. We are constantly working to improve the product and service for our customers. We survey 20-30 customers every month and work on addressing the key concerns so that we can provide the very best product and service to New Zealand’s’ small businesses. We appreciate we live in a fast changing world so we work on releasing a new version of the software every eight to ten weeks.

Who owns SmartPayroll?

SmartPayroll has been designed and developed by Datacom, the largest New Zealand owned Information Technology organisation. Datacom employs over 1,500 staff and has been in operation in New Zealand since 1965.

What payroll expertise and resources does Datacom have?

Datacom pays approximately 16% of the New Zealand work-force. Its payroll customer base spans a broad cross section of the public and private sector. Datacom’s smallest customers employ only 1 or 2 staff whilst its single largest customer pays over 80,000 people each fortnight. The company has been delivering payroll services for more than 25 years.

Datacom has offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, each with a team of payroll and HR Information Systems specialists. Large scale, secure processing centres are sited at Datacom locations in various parts of New Zealand and manned by Datacom IT professionals.

Please feel free to contact Asantha with any comments, thoughts for improvement or feedback.
asantha@smartbusinesslive.co.nz