•Kenya has more than seven million small and medium businesses .
•Majority are still processing their payroll through spreadsheets, which makes it tedious and time consuming.
Cloud payroll and HR Platform–FaidiHR is targeting SMEs in its expansion plan in Kenya and the region, as it continues to digitise operations in companies.
Launched early 2020 as Crew Africa, and rebranded last year, the company is currently developing an android mobile application, which it says will improve access to services such as leave application, pay slips downloading and accessing credit based on payroll.
This will be launched by end of June, management said.
“We are also working to launch officially in all east African countries to expand our market reach,” CEO Peter Muriithi said.
According to Muriithi, HR/Payroll systems will in future offer other valued add services such as mobile loans, insurance products from different providers, and services such as buy now pay later from different third party providers.
Kenya has more than seven million small and medium businesses with majority still processing their payroll through spreadsheets, which makes it tedious and time consuming.
Its also prone to errors making compliance a big challenge with bodies like Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), NSSF, NHIF and the National Industrial Training Authority (NITA).
FaidiHR also helps manage casual and gig workers, running payrolls based on a weekly, biweekly or monthly payment periods.
It is also helping financial inclusion by allowing employees to access instant emergency loans based on payroll data.
The Parent Company Megahit Limited was a software development agency that would develop custom solutions for businesses.
“One client requested us to develop a hr module for an ERP we were developing. We did our research and realised so many other companies are in need of a hr and payroll solution. We decided to focus on it through continuous feedback and development from our early adopters,” he said.
Last year, Switzerland headquartered software development company, SprintX , became the first investor in the company through the founder and general partner Pavan Kumar.
“SprintX has been very instrumental in our growth in the last six months.We have seen our clientele double and our growth rate increase to more than 20 per cent month-on-month,”Muriithi said.
The company has begun expanding to other East African countries with a focus on Uganda and Tanzania.
It targets to have a presence in all the EAC states by the end of this year.
The company’s launch in Kenya came at a time when Covid-19 pandemic has seen an accelerated digital transformation in Kenya and the globe.
Due to remote work and work from home concepts ,HR managers heavily relied on digital platforms tools without having to visit the physical office.
Tools that are installed on physical servers in the office were not that useful because there was restriction of movement.
This increased the adoption rate and businesses sort cloud tools for continuity of their businesses such as zoom, asana, slack and FaidiHR to manage their people and run payroll.
This included payroll management, leave management and time off, employee on boarding and off boarding, projects and tasks, performance and appraisal, timesheet and attendance and assets management.
The firm processes close to 100 million in salaries every month and targets to reach one billion by the end of the year.