SAAA brings accounting services and hope to the townships

SAAA brings accounting services and hope to the townships

• 06 March 2020
• Accounting
• Ciaran Ryan

You might be forgiven for thinking that the last thing needed in SA’s townships is accounting services: jobs, yes, better municipal services, certainly, but accounting services?

The Hope Factory, in partnership with JP Morgan Chase, the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) Enterprise Development unit and SA Accounting Academy (SAAA), recently graduated 50 unemployed accountants after putting them through a four-month bootcamp-style work readiness programme to prepare them for a career as professional accountants.

The graduates learn the nitty-gritty of office etiquette, dress codes and business and accounting ethics. Simple things, like how to alphabetically file a document, is something not taught in accounting colleges.

Most of the 50 graduates have now been placed in jobs at accounting practices servicing small and medium-sized businesses in Soweto, Tembisa and Katlehong.

Here’s why providing accounting services to the townships is a great idea. Says Annie McWalter of SAICA Enterprise Development: “It gives smaller township businesses an understanding of how their businesses operate and where they can improve. Many township businesses do not grow because they are often seen as survival-type enterprises. Accountants can give them a deeper level understanding of how to make their businesses sustainable and profitable.”

Another benefit is that it brings informal businesses into the formal tax-paying sector, which benefits the country at large.

SAAA has a long history of training accounting graduates and burnishing their skills for deployment in the work place. SAAA has a record of placing more than 90% of its accounting graduates into formal sector employment – a track record virtually unmatched in SA.

Says SAAA CEO Rob Murray: “Over the years we have placed many thousands of previously unemployed accountants into the workplace. Our training methodology has been refined and tweaked over these 12 years to focus on the things that employers are looking for: obviously, they must be technically competent as accountants, which means being able to take over the accounts of a client on the day they step into a new company; secondly, an understanding of workplace culture and ethics, down to simple things such as how to communicate with a boss, or a client; thirdly, a good understanding of the general business environment in which they find themselves.”

Such is the success of the programme that plans are now afoot to extend it countrywide, and SAICA ED is applying to partner with the government’s Youth Employment Services (YES) programme which provides work experience for unemployed youth by making a contribution to the employee’s salary for the first year.

McWalter hopes the township small businesses will continue engaging with the small accounting practices, though many are cash-strapped and known to be erratic payers. “But we expect one they have seen the benefits of getting professional accounting services, they will want to continue and see the benefits of actually paying for the service.”

With the training and employment of the 50 graduates complete, the second leg of the programme – called the Khulisa iBiznis Programme – aims to assist small business owners in attracting funding successfully and growing their businesses by offering financial management skills and providing accounting and back-office support. This is a collaboration project between SAICA ED and The Hope Factory. The Funding Accelerator Programme will enable these small business owners to become financially savvy over a period of 18 months.

The Tembisan reported on one previous programme participant that increased turnover by 54% after the programme. Business owner Lusanda Tyebileyo, from Tisang Group, said the programme had enabled the development, growth and success of the businesses.

To qualify for inclusion in the Khulisa iBiznis Programme, small business owners and directors must be between the ages of 18 and 35 years, and their business must be at least 51 per cent black-owned. They must also have been operating in one of the three selected townships for at least two years.

The business must have a tax clearance certificate, a business bank account, have valid Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission (CIPC) documents and be registered as a PTY/CC/Cooperative documents,” says SAICA ED.

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