Clearing missing employee details before tax season
How a payroll bureau finds and collects missing employee details in Achekam before IRP5 and IT3(a) certificates and the EMP501 reconciliation are due.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa
Every South African payroll bureau knows the pattern. Months of pay runs go smoothly, then the reconciliation season arrives and certificates will not go through because a cashier has no income tax reference number, a gardener's ID number was typed with a digit missing, or a new hire's address was never captured. The bureau asks the client, the client asks the employee, and the request travels back and forth by WhatsApp while the deadline approaches.
The details were missing all year. The bureau only finds out when SARS's validation finds out.
Achekam's payroll moves that discovery earlier. It will not finalise a certificate without the details SARS needs, and it gives the bureau a way to request what is missing from the client and track the answer.
What holds a certificate back
From approved pay runs, Achekam prepares the IRP5 and IT3(a) certificates for each employee, along with the monthly EMP201 figures and PDF. An IRP5 is issued where tax was deducted, and an IT3(a) where it was not.
A certificate is numbered and frozen only when SARS's required details are present. If something is missing, for example the employee's income tax reference, the certificate can still be produced so the bureau can check it, but it cannot be issued.
That distinction is useful. Producing certificates for checking well before they are due, for every employee, turns the hidden problem into a visible list: these employees have certificates that cannot be issued yet, and here is why.
The EMP501 waits for the same clean-up
For the EMP501, Achekam reconciles PAYE month by month and produces the file that SARS's e@syFile Employer imports. It refuses to produce that file while anything SARS would reject remains.
The firm then completes and submits the EMP501 in SARS's own software. Achekam does not submit returns or declarations to SARS; it prepares the figures and files, and a person files them and records the filing. SARS's page on completing and submitting employer declarations gives an overview of the EMP501 reconciliation, which matches PAYE, SDL, UIF and ETI to the IRP5 and IT3(a) certificates issued for the year.
So the EMP501 is blocked by the same missing details that block the certificates. Clear one and you clear the other.
Requesting what is missing from the client
Most of the missing details sit with the client's employees, not with the bureau. Achekam's RFI & CLIENT REQUESTS console lets staff create, send and track requests to clients for documents, answers and confirmations, whichever screen the request was raised from.
A useful request for this purpose lists each affected employee and what is needed for each one. The client opens the request from a personal e-mailed link, with no Achekam account required. The firm can also require a one-time code sent to the client's e-mail before the request opens; that option is off by default. Links last 14 days by default.
On the request page, the client can upload files or folders and answer questions. What they send is filed in that client's vault folder, so the copy of an employee's ID document or SARS registration letter ends up with the client's records rather than in someone's inbox. Executable file types are blocked.
Because the request is reused every year, it is worth saving as a template under RFI Templates.
Reminders until the details arrive
Requests stall. Achekam keeps them moving:
- Staff accept or reject each item the client sent, and can return the request saying exactly what is still missing.
- Automatic reminders go every 3 days by default, up to 5 per request.
- Reminders can be switched off where a phone call will work better.
Each request also has a timeline of e-mails, opens, clicks, uploads and answers. If the request is flagged "Delivery failed", the mail provider refused it or none is set up, and no amount of waiting will help; fix the address or the mail set-up first. Opens are detected with a tracking image, so treat them only as an indication that the client has looked.
Rejecting an item with a reason is better than accepting it and fixing it quietly. A note such as "ID number has twelve digits; please check against the ID document" goes back to the client and, through them, to the employee who can actually fix it.
Filing yourself, and recording the reference
When the certificates are clean and the EMP501 file has been produced, a person at the firm files on SARS eFiling, or completes the EMP501 in e@syFile Employer, and records the reference SARS gave in Achekam. The record of what was filed, and when, then sits with the payroll it came from.
A timetable that avoids the rush
Rather than dates, think in stages:
- Well ahead of the deadline. Produce certificates for checking for every employer and list those that cannot be issued.
- Straight after. Send each affected client one request listing the employees and the missing details.
- While reminders run. Accept or reject each item as it arrives, and update employee records.
- Before the reconciliation window. Produce draft certificates again and confirm the list is empty.
- At filing. Produce the EMP501 file, complete the submission in SARS's software, and record the reference.
- For new hires. Make the required details part of the client's starter checklist, so the problem does not grow back.
Setting up each client as its own employer is covered in running clients' payroll as separate employers, and posting the runs to the client's ledger in posting a client's wages journal. For pay that the calculator will not work out, such as a lump sum without a directive, see the payroll calculator's limits.
This month, produce draft certificates for your largest payroll client and count how many cannot be issued. That number is your early warning, and it is far easier to deal with now than in the last week before the deadline.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
