Success story:
Bega Cheese

One of Australia’s most well-known food companies, Bega Cheese produces a range of dairy products, spreads, and other grocery products that are sold around the country and the world. Headquartered in Bega, NSW, the company has approximately 4,000 employees located in offices and manufacturing sites in every Australian state and territory.

Bega has been a MicrOpay customer for 20 years, and in that time, the company’s workforce has expanded significantly due to several business acquisitions. One of the biggest challenges for Bega has been the process of integrating newly acquired employees and payroll systems into the business. Alex MacFarlane, Senior Business Analyst for HR at Bega, says MicrOpay has been instrumental in facilitating this integration process.

“Bega has made three acquisitions over the last few years, and each new company had their own payroll system. But we’ve always stuck with Access MicrOpay because of its flexibility and ease-of-use compared to the other systems,” said Alex.

Alex says that one of the biggest challenges Bega faced with its latest acquisition was integrating its payroll with multiple legacy solutions, including an ERP, HCM, and a time & attendance system. He says that MicrOpay made this process painless.

“MicrOpay’s flexibility allowed us to easily integrate all of these systems, which just wasn’t possible with the existing payroll solution used by the acquired business.”

Access MicrOpay has a 25-year legacy of helping Australian businesses deliver accurate and compliant payroll. Alex says that Access MicrOpay’s expertise of the local landscape, and the support offered by its Australian-based team, has helped Bega immensely.

“We have a fantastic relationship with the Access MicrOpay team. It almost feels like they’re an extension of our team. Whenever we have a problem, they do their utmost to help,” says Alex.

“The implementation support we received from Access MicrOpay was instrumental in getting our business acquisitions over the line. It was almost like they were there with us feeling the pain as well. We could always rely on them to investigate any problems we were having and provide solutions.”

“The Access MicrOpay team helped make integrating our recent acquisition – which was a very daunting prospect – a smooth process. The team really took charge and were proactive with their support, which was a great comfort to us."

Alex says that Bega’s payroll compliance obligations are particularly complex, given its workforce is spread across different states and territories, and are bound by multiple enterprise agreements. He says that Access MicrOpay has helped the company simplify its compliance obligations.

“Our compliance obligations are quite complex, so having an easy-to-navigate solution like Access MicrOpay is a big plus for us. Its reporting functionality has really helped us streamline our compliance. It’s very easy to run reports, which makes everything a lot less stressful.”

Alex says that when Bega made the transition to Single Touch Payroll (STP) a few years ago, Access MicrOpay made it a smooth one.

“We really didn’t have to think about it,” says Alex of Bega’s transition to STP. “Access MicrOpay had it all under control for us. So now it’s not as daunting to think about transitioning to STP Phase 2.”

For Alex, MicrOpay’s ease-of-use, and the local support offered by its dedicated team of payroll experts, are what sets the solution apart from the competition.

"I would definitely recommend MicrOpay to other businesses. It’s just a really good all-round solution. Not only is it easy to use, but the fact that it’s an Australian-built payroll solution gives us confidence that we’re meeting all of our compliance obligations."