The job: staff paid correctly, SARS numbers ready, on every plan (payroll isn't an add-on here).
1. Add the employee — HR & Payroll → Employees → New: name, ID number, start date, monthly salary (or hourly rate), and the tax-relevant bits — date of birth (age rebates apply automatically), medical aid members (the tax credit calculates itself), retirement contribution if any. 2. Check the payroll settings — Settings → Automatic payroll if you want runs to happen by themselves on your salary day (fully automatic, or drafts for you to review). Skip this for the first manual run. 3. Generate the month — HR & Payroll → Pay runs → Generate. Every active employee gets a draft payslip with PAYE (2027 tables), UIF (capped correctly) and SDL computed. Nothing has touched your books yet. 4. Review a payslip. Open it — basic, additions (overtime at 1.5× if hourly with timesheets, bonuses you add), deductions, employer contributions, net. Edit anything that's special this month; PAYE recalculates. 5. Finalise. This is the commit: the payslip locks, a balanced journal posts (salary expense, PAYE/UIF/SDL liabilities, net pay owed), and the employee can be emailed their payslip PDF. 6. Pay the people — export the salary bank file and upload it to your bank for a one-batch EFT run. 7. Pay SARS — the month's EMP201 figures are on the SARS page, ready to copy into eFiling by the 7th.
The wider machinery — leave that accrues and expires per the BCEA, the employee self-service portal (leave requests and expense claims with a photo of the slip, no seat needed), IRP5s and EMP501 at year-end — is in Payroll and Leave & expense claims.