Pan African Savings and Loans Limited, as part of its corporate social responsibility, has trained some 120 customers in the second edition of its campaign to equip its SME customers with the requisite knowledge they need to grow their businesses.

The programme, dubbed ‘Pan-African Business Advisory Programme’, was instituted in October 2016 to train customers of Pan-African Savings and Loans on key issues such as how to run their businesses on daily basis and to equip them with basic knowledge on bookkeeping and accounting.

The training, which focused on bookkeeping, was held in four branches of the company in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions, namelyAccra (Head Office), Kumasi, Goaso and Kenyasi.

At the opening of the programme at the company’s head office in Accra, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Pan-African Savings and Loans, Kwaku D. Berchie, said the theme of the second edition was chosen because Pan African realised how the absence of proper bookkeeping was affecting the business of its customers.

“For most of them, it is just about going to work and making sales but not accounting for monies that went out of the business. Usually this becomes problematic,” he said.

Mr Berchie added that the absence of bookkeeping makes it difficult for Pan African’s loan officers when customers come for loans.

This, he noted, leaves the loan officers with no choice than to make guesses or take what customers say with regards to the volumes and value of their stock.
“With this training we want them to take into consideration any money that goes out of their pocket in the course of the day. They must learn to assign a cost to everything that goes out and know what comes in,” Mr Berchie explained.

He was of the view that if the customers who were trained practice what they learn, it will inure to the benefit of Pan African Savings and Loans as well as the individualsand their businesses.

The Business Advisory Programme is part of the company’s objective to grow its customers by sharing information and knowledge with them.

Pan African believes that this will help equipits customers with basic management skills and make them understand the link between the business decisions they take and how it affect their business.

Pan-African Savings and Loans will hold the third edition of the training in November this.