Our Partners
SMTAX has joined forces with these amazing partners to offer clients the opportunity to access affordable and efficient business-support services to assist their business with the impact of COVID-19.
Creating a digital presence for your company is very important for your business. Especially due to restricted movements and lockdown imposed by the Government. Make it easier for your clients to find you online. We partnered with Holaweb to help you setup a website, domain and hosting.
Making the right decision based on the right information is very important to ensure the sustainability and success of your business. We have partnered with Hybr SA to help us put together webinars with industry expects, funding institutions and governmental agencies.
Your ability to get funding to cushion the impact of COVID19 is very important to maintain your cash flow . Cashflow is the life blood of any small business. The government and other funding institutions have announced funding mechanism and grants. SMTAX is adequately geared to help you access this funding.
Having a real time view of your cash balance to see if a company has enough cash to pay its immediate liabilities is very important. Xero is offering a 50% discount to support SMEs in South Africa. Xero will help you keep track of your cash flow and also send invoices to your customers online.
To our SMTAX community,
We wanted to take a moment to share with our customers, partners and communities how SMTAX is responding to the evolving Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation.
We’ve been closely monitoring this since news first broke and we’ve had a dedicated team working on this for some time. This team meets regularly and our approach and decisions are based on advice and information from reliable sources such as the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and government agencies.World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and government agencies.
Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, in line with our ethos of "automated accounting with a human touch" so we are actively listening and responding to your concerns and challenges. I wanted to share the plans we have in place to ensure we continue to provide you – our customers and partners – with a seamless experience and the support you need and expect from us.
We are here to support you
There’s no doubt that COVID-19 poses immense challenges to the South African economy and small businesses. As more people practise social distancing and go into lockdown, business is going to slow down and resulting in challenges cashflow and meeting short term obligations. Everyone will feel the impact. We've already begun working on ways that we can help you even more.As a digital-based business, we are fortunate to have a suite of tools that keep our business operating smoothly, no matter where our people are. In addition, cloud platforms have built-in features that offer flexibility and allow customers to contact us from anywhere and using any device. This also means you will be able to access our customer support team.
Supporting our people and communities
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, our priority has been to ensure we’re taking care of the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and the communities we operate in.
We have stepped up measures to take greater precautionary measures. This includes supporting our people to work from home, reducing in-person meetings and restricting business travel.
We’re also supporting anyone who has concerns for their health and wellbeing, ensuring these people have the ability to work from home, with access to our employee assistance programs if they need a little extra support.
We have ensured that all our people are covered on Medical Aid and have subsidised upto 80% of the cost, to ensure they receive adequate medical treatment should the need arise. In this regard we have partnered with Discovery Medical Aid
Your business continuity is important
Many of our customers are already thinking about business continuity planning. If you are looking at ways that your business can be equipped, we have put together bite-sized webinars from us and our partners to ensure your business is equipped with all the tools needed to empower your staff to work flexibly,
We've been working closely with the department of small business, NYDA and other funding institutions like Old Mutual ,FNB and Inyosi, to name but a few, in order to help our customers access affordable funding to support their business during these tough times.
Over the next few weeks, we'll provide you with support in the form of resources, content, and opportunities to help you through this.Our business continuity is equally important
Like all global companies, we have a robust business continuity plan to keep our platforms online, and essential teams like our customer support, technology and product teams want to maintain a seamless ‘always on’ experience. We have undertaken considerable planning and testing to ensure we can continue to deliver the same level of service excellence to our customers.
All our platforms including our partner platforms (Xero, Hubdoc, AutoEntry, SimplePay) – are cloud-based and is supported by a globally based technical team with failovers, including a system of support coverage should we go offline, with built in resourcing. We’ve also been working with many of our external technical service providers, such as our cloud infrastructure vendors, to ensure they too, can continue to deliver to us.
SMTAX Webinars
We will be hosting a number of webinars in the coming weeks to help you navigate some of the challenges your business is facing.
If you have any concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by reaching out to your key SMTAX contact or through support@smtax.co.za . We’ll continue to update you as our plans evolve. We urge you all to look after yourselves, your families, colleagues and friends.
Regards
Buchule Sibaca - CEO
To our SMTAX community,
We've been working closely with the department of small business, NYDA and other funding institutions like Old Mutual ,FNB and Inyosi, to name but a few, in order to help our customers access affordable funding to support their business during these tough times.partners – with a seamless experience and the support you need and expect from us.
1. COID Claims
The compensation for occupational injuries and disease benefits, has issued a notice in terms of section 6A of the COIDA act. The notice of became effective on 20 March 2020. This benefit allows employees to claim a benefit, if they have been infected with Covid19 in the workplace or if they have recently made a trip to a high risk area for work purposes. The ICD10 code to be used on the claim form and medical diagnosis is U07.01.Some industries that will be heavily impacted would be health care and support services. Please note the employer would be liable to pay for days of absence upto 30 days
for temporary disablement. Temporary Total Disablement - These are suspected and unconfirmed cases, where the medical practitioner has recommended self quarantine.
If an employee is diagnosed with the COVID19 these are the steps to follow:
1. Obtain diagnosis from registered medical practitioner
2. Download required forms from the department of labour (COID Website).
3. Complete all documents required and submit via email to COIDA.
2. Small Enterprise Funding Agency (SEFA)
The following packages have been made available by SEFA to help support SME's with regards to the COVID-19. SEFA has allocated R500 million across all 3 support packages.
1. Business Growth Facility
2. SMME Relief Finance
3. Restructuring of SEFA-funded SMEs
Business Growth Facility - Only for SME's that are directly in the production or supply of healthcare and related products that will be utilized to combat the spread of COVID-19. The facility is structured as a loan at a rate of prime less 5%.
SMME Relief Finance - Only for SME's that are negatively impacted by the COVID-19 virus. The fund provides working capital (e.g. rent, salaries etc) limited to R500 000. The facility is structured as a loan at a rate of prime less 5%.
Restructuring of SEFA-funded SMEs - only for SEFA funded SMES. The programme allows SME's to get up to a 6 month payment holiday (moratorium) on existing SEFA debt. The interest is not capitalised during this period.Qualifying criteria:
1. Must be SARS Tax Compliant - to get compliant click here
2. Must be UIF Compliant - to get compliant click here
3. Must be registered on the SMME database and CSD - register here
3. SARS Tax Relief
If a small business does not file their tax returns on SARS would normally impose an administrative penalty for non-submission in accordance with the Tax Administration act (TAA). Late payment of any taxes (PAYE, VAT or Provisional Tax) has a 10% penalty. Due to the exceptional circumstance of COVID-19 SARS has allow taxpayers relief by remitting these penalties.
Taxpayer are also allowed to delay upto 20% of their PAYE debt for the next 4 months. SARS will also payout employee tax incentives every month instead of every 2 months.
4. UIF Temporary Employer Relief Scheme (TERS)
Only applicable is a business/employer decides as a result of the recent COVID-19 pandemic to close his/her business and send employees home. This is also applicable as a result of the lock-down announced by the president. If the employer cannot afford to pay employees over this period, the business can apply for relief. The value of the benefit is limited to R17 712.
You may apply online www.ufiling.co.za or send an email with required documentation to online.BCP@labour.gov.za
5. South Africa Future Trust (SAFT)
The SAFT has been setup by the Oppenheimer Family and will extend direct financial support to SMME employees who are at risk of losing their jobs or will suffer a loss of income because of COVID-19. The fund will be administered by the major 4 banks and will be in the form of an interest free loan for a period of 5 years.
You may contact your bank to get more information.
6. Sukuma Relief Programme
This is the application platform for financial assistance and aid for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) negatively impacted by COVID-19. The initiative is supported and funded by The Rupert family and Remgro Limited who pledged R1 billion towards this financial aid.
The fund is administered by Business Partners - www.businesspartners.co.za