The logistics company Zammler has been operating on the global market for 18 years. Its branches in Kazakhstan were established in 2020. The company specializes in end-to-end logistics, including fulfillment and customs brokerage. Over the past five years, Zammler has developed a network across 7 cities in Kazakhstan, which includes dozens of warehouses and offices. The company has partnered with international organizations, marketplaces, and leading online stores. The daily order turnover exceeds 200,000, and the staff consists of more than two thousand employees in various positions.
— Due to the rapid growth and continuous development of our business, we must find effective solutions that allow us not only to optimize processes but also to create comfortable conditions for our employees. We strive to set market standards, and one of our priority areas is ensuring a favorable working environment. In this context, Prosper Pay has become an important tool that helps reduce financial stress for employees, speeds up internal processes, and strengthens team loyalty, — said Andrey Perepelitsa, the General Director of Zammler Kazakhstan.
Like any company with a large number of blue-collar workers, Zammler faces issues related to frequent turnover. According to the company's HR Director Saltanat Zhunusova, they are actively working to reduce employee turnover and accelerate hiring. To achieve this, the company provides transportation for employees, free meals, and flexible schedules, among other benefits. Despite all these conveniences, one of the key concerns remains financial. Since many employees (statistically, every third Kazakh) live paycheck to paycheck, unforeseen circumstances that require unexpected expenses can leave them in a difficult situation. In such cases, employees often turn to their employer for advances, but they do not always receive them for various reasons. As a result, they borrow money from acquaintances or take out loans or microloans. Understanding this "pain," Zammler decided to implement the Kazakh service for automated advance payments, Prosper Pay.
Prosper Pay is a service that integrates with the company's accounting systems and allows employees to independently take advances from their salaries at any time and instantly. At the end of the month, they also receive their salary, minus the amount that has already been withdrawn. For companies, this is a convenient system for paying employees, while for users, it is a clear and user-friendly mobile application available in the App Store and Google Play.
Optimizing Work Time
The Prosper Pay service was connected at Zammler in November 2024. They started with one warehouse to pilot its effectiveness and demand among employees.
— To objectively assess the benefits of the service, we began with the most problematic areas. We included a warehouse where employees work in various positions and schedules to test the system under different conditions. In November, we launched the first warehouse, in December the second, and in January we connected employees from the central office. Starting in February, we plan to expand access to the service to all company employees, — says Saltanat Zhunusova.
Zammler did not immediately decide to connect Prosper Pay. After the first meeting with the service representatives in the summer of 2024, the company believed that integration would be complicated due to the specifics of their internal management system and manual timekeeping. However, during a follow-up meeting in September, after asking more clarifying questions to the developers, the Zammler team became convinced that Prosper Pay could indeed solve the advance payment issue.
— The company employs about two thousand people, but only two accountants handle payroll. Because of this, we couldn't provide advances to everyone who wanted them, so we set strict limits: no more than 10 people per month from one department or warehouse, — explains the interviewee. — This created a queue: if an employee received an advance in the current month, they could not apply for one the following month. Even with these restrictions, we received over 100 requests monthly.
Zammler could not increase this limit, as doing so would require the company to hire a separate accountant, whose main function would be to calculate advances, adjustments, and payroll calculations. This would also add extra burden to the internal accounting system, where an employee creates a request for an advance, sends it to their manager for approval, and then to the operational director, who forwards it to accounting. “Can you imagine how many people are involved in getting one employee an advance!” — says Saltanat.
— The integration of Prosper Pay significantly simplified the work of the accounting department. Already at the pilot stage in two warehouses, the number of advances processed manually decreased by 20 per month. This has substantially reduced the workload on accountants and the operational director, freeing up their time for more important tasks, — claims the interviewee.
An Alternative to Microloans
Zammler notes that employees immediately appreciated the convenience of the service. Of course, during the presentation held for employees at the launch of Prosper Pay, they had many questions about its safety, potential negative consequences, and so on. They were assured that they could use this application completely legally, and advances were registered on the very first day of the service's operation. Meanwhile, the company expected that no more than 20% of employees would use the app, but in the first days after the launch, about 50% of the staff took advances. “If previously no more than 100 advances were issued in a month, in the last 30 days this number reached 826,” — the company reports.
— Gathering feedback from employees about the Prosper Pay service, I noticed that they appreciate the fact that they no longer need to ask for permission from management, go through approvals, and wait 3–4 days for accounting to process their request. The service allows them to obtain an advance at any time of the day literally within a minute, — clarifies Saltanat Zhunusova.
Zammler has set a limit: employees can receive advances no more than four times a month, and the advance cannot exceed 40% of their salary.
— These limits were introduced consciously, as many employees have loans and financial obligations. We want to avoid situations where they are left without funds at the end of the month, — explains Saltanat. — Thanks to this approach, the number of requests to microcredit organizations has significantly decreased — now, if an employee urgently needs money, they can simply take it from their future salary without having to seek loans.
For companies, this service can be free, as Prosper Pay's revenue model is based on commissions charged for each transaction. These are relatively small and depend on the amount of the advance. This commission can be paid by either the employee or the employer in some proportion. By the way, advances are paid from the Prosper Pay balance, and then, when the company pays the employee's salary, the amount of the advances taken is transferred back to the service's accounts. Thus, companies do not need to allocate funds for advances from their operating capital.
— After the launch, we were concerned that there might be complaints at the end of the month about incomplete salaries, but no, everything went very smoothly. Now, because employees have constant access to funds, we have noticed that they take only as much money as they need at the moment to solve financial issues, rather than taking it in advance. On average, the amount withdrawn is 18,000 tenge per month.
Regarding employee turnover, Zammler reported a decrease of 40% and 29% in two pilot branches in Almaty in December compared to November. The hiring time for new employees has also decreased thanks to improved working conditions. At the same time, the company clarifies that it is impossible to assess the impact of just one service on the number of resignations, as Zammler is implementing many other initiatives to improve employees' lives, and Prosper Pay has become an additional bonus in the benefits package.
Sharing Experience
Zammler states that integrating the Prosper Pay system into their internal processes was somewhat challenging due to the specifics of their internal procedures. Prosper Pay also notes that, in addition to integrating the module into the client's 1C system, modifications were made to calculate advances based on time sheets required for the company's internal processes. Overall, it took just over a month to connect the service, but this was only for the first warehouse. The employees of the second warehouse were connected to the system in just one day, as the processes and systems were already set up.
— The 1C specialists connected to the Prosper Pay system, verified that all data was being transmitted correctly, confirmed the absence of discrepancies in data transfer between the systems, and everything worked. When we connect all employees to this service, it will be enough to set the appropriate settings in the administrative panel, and that’s it, — says Saltanat Zhunusova.