Sage Pastel increases cross-border training efforts

Sage Pastel continues to support its strong growth in 50 countries with a concerted education drive focussed on its range of accounting and business management solutions. The goal of the drive is to improve the practical accounting skills in the regions it operates in outside of South Africa and press home the need for SMEs to adopt recognised accounting principles in their daily operations.

“Over the past three years, we have trained over 4000 students, 450 resellers and 150 accountants,” says Jeff Lewis, director of Sage Pastel . “In addition, we have launched Pastel Authorised Training Centres (ATCs) in 37 countries; with two schools and one university in Africa committing themselves to running courses using Pastel software exclusively.”

“By far the largest component of our training commitment is into Africa. As more international organisations focus on the continent, more African SMEs are realising they need to be able to demonstrate their commitment to accepted accounting practices if they wish to become part of the global economy. Adopting certified accounting practices and electronic financial applications sends a clear signal that these companies are now open for business.”

In addition to improving the skills of customers, partners and accountants in the regions, the training is aimed at ensuring SMEs know how to select the correct electronic accounting solutions that will best serve their business needs. Most SMEs select the Pastel range of accounting applications because of the ease of use, reliability, stability and international brand recognition that is part of the Pastel name – as well as the training on offer that takes them far beyond simple accounting.

Sage Pastel has six dedicated training specialists who travel across the continent, and the world, spending between one and four weeks in every location to ensure their courses bear fruit. The training starts with the basics needed to run a set of books and advances to product-specific courses for Pastel Xpress, Pastel Accounting and Pastel Evolution.

“These are not merely courses in which attendees receive a certificate of attendance simply for turning up,” says Lewis. “Every attendee has to pass an exam at the end of the course, attaining a minimum of 80%. By keeping the standards high, we ensure our users understand the financial principles they have to apply in their businesses, and how Pastel software can help them run their businesses more efficiently.”

The popular image of Africa is that it is a hotbed of corruption and that transacting in the region is a high-risk enterprise. Simply adopting standard accounting practices and maintaining an efficient set of books will quickly dispel this image and encourage more investment in the region, which will lead to the economic growth the continent desperately needs.

Sage Pastel is the leading supplier of accounting and business management applications and products are currently sold in more than 50 countries. The software is available in 6 different languages including Dutch, English, Danish, German, Icelandic and Portuguese.