Every employer in South Africa must give each employee written pay information every payday — it's a legal requirement under section 33 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), not a nice-to-have. Here's what has to be on it.
The BCEA minimum
Each payslip must show, in writing:
1. The employer's name and address — a payslip with just a company name doesn't comply. 2. The employee's name and occupation. 3. The period the payment relates to. 4. Remuneration in money — the gross pay. 5. Deductions made from the remuneration — each one, itemised. 6. The actual amount paid — the net pay. 7. Where relevant to overtime pay: ordinary and overtime hours worked, and rates.
It must be given at the workplace, during working hours (or within 15 minutes of them), on payday.
What a professional payslip adds
Beyond the legal minimum, a payslip your employees (and their banks, landlords and credit providers) will take seriously usually shows:
- PAYE, UIF and any retirement or medical deductions as separate lines — employees are entitled to see exactly what was withheld and why.
- Employer contributions (UIF employer share, SDL, medical/retirement) — not deducted from the employee, but part of the true cost of employment and useful for transparency.
- Year-to-date totals — gross, PAYE, UIF and net for the tax year so far. This is what makes February IRP5 season painless.
- Leave balance — annual leave accrues at roughly 1.25 days a month (15 working days a year) under the BCEA; showing the balance on the payslip prevents most leave disputes.
- The employer's registration number and contact details — banks routinely reject payslips that look homemade when employees apply for finance.
Common mistakes
- WhatsApp screenshots of a spreadsheet — not compliant (no employer address, usually no deduction detail) and useless to a bank.
- Emailing the salary amount in plain text — a privacy problem. Better: a secure link the employee opens with their own ID number.
- No record kept — you must keep payroll records for three years minimum (five for SARS purposes, effectively).
- Netting off reimbursements into salary — business expense reimbursements aren't remuneration and shouldn't be taxed; mixing them into gross pay overtaxes your employee.
The easy way
360books generates professional, BCEA-compliant payslips automatically: company letterhead with registration number and address, itemised earnings and deductions, employer contributions, year-to-date totals and the live annual-leave balance — delivered to each employee by a secure, ID-protected link, never as a plain-text email. PAYE, UIF, SDL and ETI are computed on the SARS tables, and IRP5s generate themselves at year-end.