The SA Payroll Association has announced the dates and venues of its annual national conference and the directors plan to use the event to showcase what is being done to help drive payroll excellence.
A two-day conference will take place in Joburg on September 5 and 6 and two half- day regional conferences will take place in Cape Town, on September 11, and Durban, on September 13.
Chairman James McKerrell says a significant part of the association’s mandate is to empower payroll practitioners to deal with legislative changes that require a greater level of compliance and governance.
“We believe that payroll practitioners strive for excellence, not only for the compliance aspect, but because it is in their nature to be ethical and correct,” he says. “We need to provide practitioners with all the tools and insight to achieve this level of excellence.”
One of the more noticeable changes to this year’s conference is the elimination of topics that may be related to payroll indirectly – the focus will primarily be on payroll.
“In the past, we have catered to a mixed audience of payroll practitioners, decision-makers in finance and representatives from other areas of business,” says McKerrell.
“With our more focused approach, we hope to attract more payroll practitioners.”
Among the topics for discussion are legislation that affects payroll, labour laws affecting payroll, payroll compliance and controls, employee benefits and payroll education.
McKerrell says the organisation is confident of the rate of growth within the SA payroll industry, its overall development and its strength compared with global counterparts.
The association does its best to attend at least two international conferences a year to ensure that it understands what is happening globally and to forge alliances with other associations. The association is affiliated to and has relationships with domestic and international industry bodies, such as The Institute of Payroll Professionals (UK); the American Payroll Association; the Canadian Payroll Association; the Association for Payroll Specialists (Australia); the Irish Payroll Association; and the New Zealand Payroll Association.
“The local payroll industry is definitely more mature.
“In many instances, it is ahead of international trends and best practices – mainly due to the fact that legislation, compliance and governance is high on the SA agenda and the industry has had to ‘keep up and ahead’.”
Association members who register before or on June 29 for the Joburg conference will pay R2 700; non-members will pay R4 300. To attend the half-day conferences in Cape Town or Durban, members will pay R1 200 if they pay before or on June 29; non-members will be charged R1 800.
l For more information, see www.sapayroll.co.za or call Marisa Jacobs at 011 061 5000.
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