Every business, whether small or medium or large, has to adhere to compliances irrespective of stage of maturity and profitability.
“We began offering CtrlF as a SaaS model a few years ago and have since acquired 100+ clients in a short period of time after launching the SaaS model.”
Mahesh Krishnamoorthy, Managing Director, Core Integra
Founded with the goal of providing high-quality labour law compliance advice, simplifying compliances for greater adherence by organisations of various sizes and scales, Core Integra helps accelerate digitising compliance processes to enable anywhere-anytime fulfilment by anyone who is not necessarily an expert in the compliances.
In an exclusive chat with SME Channels, Mahesh Krishnamoorthy, Managing Director, Core Integra, reveals the role Ctrl F plays in reducing business compliance costs; top compliance concerns for small and medium-sized businesses; the most common payroll compliance mistakes made by SMEs, and how that can be avoided; how technology-enabled compliance can help to improve operational efficiency; his company’s future plans to expand into international markets, Core Integra’s growth roadmap for 2023. Edited Excerpts…
Please give a brief description of your company.
Core Integra was founded in 2009 with the goal of providing high-quality labour law compliance advice, simplifying compliances for greater adherence by organisations of various sizes and scales, and digitising compliance processes to enable anywhere-anytime fulfilment by anyone who is not necessarily an expert in the compliances. Core Integra’s goal is to educate the industry on compliance requirements, make it easier to be 100% compliant, and convert paper to digital format for accurate and timely submissions. The authorities must have greater transparency, governance, and control over industry participants during this process.
Q2) Could you elaborate on Ctrl F? What role does it play in reducing business compliance costs?
CtrlF was introduced in 2014 as an addition to Core Integra’s service portfolio. We began offering CtrlF as a SaaS model a few years ago and have since acquired 100+ clients in a short period of time after launching the SaaS model. CtrlF includes a library of all Acts, Laws, Notifications, and Circulars, as well as a repository for critical documents such as licences, registrations, notices, and audit reports of an organisation, as well as an auto alert mechanism to prevent missing any critical deadlines. Under Acts and Laws specifically applicable to an organisation, the software generates various registers, returns, filings, and submissions in Central and State formats in English, regional language, and bi-lingual modes. For seamless and secure data transfer, the software can easily integrate with any Client software.
You can imagine a scenario where all of the above mentioned are in the form of books, paper, and excel sheets which are to be filed and stored for many years in physical format. Management reporting has to be manually done and is time-consuming. To top it all, it will never be known whether the organisation is 100% compliant at any time. CtrlF simplifies the entire process with complex information at the fingertips, facilitating higher control on compliance adherence.
It has been an exciting journey for us, and we now serve 750+ clients across 25 industries in 1500+ locations across India.
Q3) What are the top four compliance concerns for small and medium-sized businesses?
Every business, whether small or medium or large have to adhere to compliances irrespective of stage of maturity and profitability. The Company’s have to be cautious of ensuring they have appropriate licenses and registrations for conducting the nature of business engaged in and also renew the same before expiry. With respect to staff engaged by them, basis nature of employment, need to ensure compliances pertaining wages & remuneration, social security and working conditions, health and safety is adhered to.
Q4) Which are the most common payroll compliance mistakes (by SMEs), and how can they be avoided?
Among common mistakes with respect to payroll compliances, it is observed that many entities fail to deduct Provident Fund at the right basic salary or at the right percentage, if deducted many times they fail to make payment to EPFO within monthly deadlines.
It has also been observed in many instances, Company’s fail to take ESIC registration for new joiners in time and in many instances details are incomplete or inaccurate resulting in problems when the employee wants to make a claim.
Q5) How can technology-enabled compliance help to improve operational efficiency?
Technology for compliance ensures accuracy in information capture, ease of record maintenance, alerts & notifications for critical deadlines, repository for important documents, auto generation of various returns and registers, e-library for quick and ready reference and most importantly enhanced control & governance for the management of the Company. Cost of compliance is significantly reduced and highly improbable for the Company to be on the wrong side of compliance.
Q6) Tell us about your future plans and whether you intend to expand into international markets.
There are significant plans for expansion in India since we are today the most comprehensive and largest labour law compliance platform in India. We are increasing our presence in various regions, scaling the team and adopting latest technologies to be agile and flexible. There are plans for international markets as well but a little early to comment.
