Add staff to your register

What the Staff Register is for

The Staff Register is where you list each person who works for you. You add each one just once. After that, their pay type and rate load automatically every time you do a Pay Run, and for employees their leave balances build up on their own from the start date you enter. It is also where you keep their ID number, tax reference and contact number in one place.

You will find it under Payroll, called Staff Register. Open it to see everyone you have added, then tap a person to view their full details, pay history and leave.

Under the list, the 📄 PDF and 📊 CSV / Excel buttons print the register as shown — each person's worker type, pay and rate, start date, what they cost a month and whether they have left — with the estimated monthly wage bill for the people still employed. A list you have narrowed says so under the PDF's title.

Before you start

• Know what type of worker they are: a permanent employee, a fixed-term employee, a casual or part-time worker, or an independent contractor.
• Know how you pay them: a daily wage, an hourly rate, or a monthly salary, and the amount.
• Have their SA ID number and SARS tax reference handy if you want to capture them. These are optional and you can add them later.
• The Staff Register is part of the Team and Complete plans. It is not available on the Solo plan, so if you are on Solo the app will prompt you to upgrade before you can add anyone.

Add a staff member

1. Open the Staff Register under Payroll.
2. Tap the + Add button in the top right.
3. Under "What type of worker is this?", pick one: Permanent employee, Fixed-term employee, Casual / part-time worker, or Independent contractor. Each option explains in plain words what it means for UIF, PAYE and leave.
4. Type the person's First name and Last name.
5. For an employee, set the Start date. This is used to work out their leave, so get it right. (Contractors do not have a start date.)
6. If you picked Fixed-term, fill in the Contract end date.
7. Under Pay type, choose Daily, Hourly or Monthly.
8. Fill in the rate. The label changes to match your choice: Daily wage / rate, Hourly rate, or Monthly salary / fee. Enter the amount in rand.
9. For an employee, set Days/week and Hours/day. Both appear whatever the pay type. They feed the monthly estimate, the days or hours Pay Run suggests, and the hourly rate overtime is worked out at.
10. Optionally, tick Usual week and mark the days they work (Works or Off) with the hours on each, for example Monday to Friday 8 and Saturday 5. The Attendance register then fills their days in from it instead of guessing from Days/week, and a day of leave or a public holiday on that day counts that day's hours. The Pay Run does not read it yet: it still uses Days/week and Hours/day.
11. Tap Save Employee (or Save Contractor for a contractor).

Once you enter a rate, Worklog shows a small blue box with the estimated monthly pay. For employees it also previews the UIF, splits it into the employee and employer share, and tells you whether the pay is above or below the PAYE threshold (it shows you the threshold amount). These are estimates to guide you. The real amounts are worked out exactly when you do the Pay Run.

Import a list of staff from a spreadsheet

If you already keep your people in a spreadsheet, you do not have to retype them. The Staff Register has an ⬆ Import button next to + Add that takes a CSV file, the same way Customers and Suppliers do.

1. Open the Staff Register and tap ⬆ Import.
2. Tap "⬇ Download template CSV". It comes with every column the Add Staff form has except Job title / occupation, which you add afterwards in Edit details, and one filled-in example row to copy.
3. Open it in Excel or Google Sheets, replace the example row with your people, and save it as CSV.
4. Tap "Choose CSV file…" and pick your file.
5. Check the preview. It shows how many will import, how many are duplicates, and a warning against any row it could not read cleanly.
6. Tap Import.

• first_name is the only column you must fill in. If your spreadsheet has one "name" column instead, that works too — the first word becomes the first name and the rest the surname.
• employment_type takes permanent, fixed_term, casual or contractor.
• pay_type takes Daily, Hourly or Monthly, and rate is the amount for whichever you chose — a daily wage, an hourly rate or a monthly salary.
• Dates go in as YYYY-MM-DD, for example 2026-01-15.
• Anyone whose name already appears on the register is skipped, so running the same file twice will not create everybody again.

Set a monthly allowance (optional)

Just below the rate there is a "Recurring allowance - optional" box. Use it for a standing amount you pay on top of the wage every month, like a travel or phone allowance. Fill in Allowance per month (R) and, in "What it's for", a short description such as Travel or Phone.

Night work (after 18:00 or before 06:00)

Two exceptions in the Act aren't settings: work that had to be done without delay, for a reason you couldn't have planned for, and that couldn't be done in ordinary hours, needs no night-work agreement (section 6(2)); and a pregnant employee, or one within six months of the birth, must be offered suitable other work on terms no less favourable when night work is required of her, where that is practicable (section 26(2)). Worklog doesn't record a pregnancy; the attendance register reminds you around a maternity leave on the Leave screen. Sectoral determinations and bargaining-council agreements can set their own night rules and amounts: Worklog doesn't know them, so check yours.

The BCEA allows night work only by agreement, paid with an allowance or made up with shorter working hours, and only if transport is available between their home and work at the start and end of the shift (section 17(2)). Each employee's Staff Register form has a Night work section: choose No night-work agreement, Paid a night-work allowance (the rands you agreed, for each hour of night work or each shift with any), or Shorter working hours instead, and the day it applies from. Saving an agreement asks you to tick that it was agreed with them and that transport is available. When an agreement changes, give the day the new one applies from: the one before is kept with its days, and night work before the change is paid at it. The same day as before corrects the agreement as recorded; moving only the day moves where the one before ends; and Undo the last change puts the one before back.

Add ID, tax and contact details (optional)

You do not have to capture these to save someone, but you will need them for payroll and payslips later.

1. On the add or edit screen, tap "More details - optional" to open it.
2. Type their Job title / occupation. A payslip must show it, so Worklog prints it on theirs. For a contractor the box is called What they do.
3. Enter the SA ID number (13 digits). The app shows how many digits are still needed as you type.
4. For an employee, enter the Tax reference (IRP5) from SARS eFiling.
5. If they belong to a medical aid, enter People on their medical aid — the employee plus the dependants on their scheme. Pay Run then takes the medical aid tax credit off their PAYE every month, the way SARS's own tables do. Fill it in when the contributions go through your payroll or the employee has given you proof of payment of those fees (Fourth Schedule, paragraph 9(6)); otherwise leave it at 0 and they claim the credit on their own tax return. For someone 65 or older with people on the scheme, a Medical aid fees a month box appears: PAYE then also takes off the additional medical expenses tax credit, 33,3% of the fees above three times the medical aid tax credit (Income Tax Act, section 6B(3)(a)(i)). With nobody on the scheme there is no additional credit, whatever fees are typed. The date of birth comes from their ID number.
6. Enter a Contact number.
7. For a contractor, you can add their business or trading name.
8. Tap Save Employee (or Save Contractor) at the bottom to save everything, including these extra details.

Details for SARS / UIF filing

For employees there is a second panel, "For SARS / UIF filing", below More details. You only need what is inside it when you file with SARS or UIF, not to run a pay run — but a submission like the EMP201, EMP501 or a UI-19 will ask for it. Open the panel and confirm exactly what your submission needs with your accountant. (Contractors self-file, so they do not have this panel.)

• Employee number — assigned automatically the moment you save a new employee. It never changes, so you can use it as their permanent reference. A contractor gets a contractor number instead (like CON-0001), kept apart from employee numbers.
• Date of birth — filled in for you from the SA ID number you entered under More details. Add the ID above and the date appears here on its own; it always stays in step with that ID, so it can't go out of sync.
• Residential address — street, suburb, city and code.
• Bank & account number — the bank name and account number you use to pay them and to file.

Editing someone later (like a raise)

You do not delete and re-add a person to change their pay. Open the register, tap the person, then tap Edit details to change their rate or any other detail.

1. Open the Staff Register and tap the person's name.
2. Tap Edit details.
3. Change the rate or whatever else you need.
4. Tap Save changes.

What happens next

Everyone you add appears as a card in the Staff Register showing their pay type, rate, days per week, last pay date, remaining leave and any outstanding advance. From here their rate flows straight into Pay Run, their leave builds up from their start date, and you can record advances or leave against them.

The green "Qualifies for ETI" flag

When you open an employee who is between 18 and 29, earns under R7 500 a month and has been with you for less than 24 months, Worklog shows a green "Qualifies for ETI" flag on their profile with an estimated rand amount per month. ETI, the Employment Tax Incentive, lets you reduce the PAYE you owe SARS for younger, lower-earning staff.

The amount shown is an estimate to claim on your EMP201 — it works off the person's pay type, rate and how long they have been with you. It is a prompt so you don't miss the saving, not a final figure, so confirm the exact amount with your accountant before you claim it.

Worklog only claims ETI for a person it knows qualifies. On the Staff Register (Edit, under Employment Tax Incentive) answer, once for each person: Related to the owner? (a connected person such as the owner's son or daughter is excluded by the ETI Act, section 6(c)); Domestic worker? (works in a private home, such as a maid or gardener: excluded by section 6(d)); Which minimum wage applies? (the general rate for almost everyone, the expanded public works rate, or a learnership, with its NQF level and credits); and Does a collective agreement with a trade union, a bargaining council agreement or a sectoral determination set a rate for them? (No, or Yes with the rate per hour, day or month; the Act counts all three as a wage regulating measure, section 4(3)).

Until every one of those is answered, Worklog claims no ETI for that person, and it says so by name on the EMP201 and on the pay run. Every person already on your Staff Register starts unanswered, so the ETI line on your EMP201 will show nothing until you answer them. That is deliberate: ETI that you were not allowed to claim is taken back by SARS with a penalty of 100% of it.

Even when everything is answered, Worklog checks the person's rate of pay for ordinary hours every month: it must reach the higher of the minimum wage that applies and any rate set by a collective agreement with a trade union, a bargaining council agreement or a sectoral determination, and where no such rate applies it must also reach R2 500 for 160 ordinary hours a month (in proportion for fewer hours). Overtime, Sunday and public holiday pay, allowances and corrections do not count towards that rate. If the rate is too low, the month's ETI is refused with the reason. Worklog works ETI out only for months from April 2025; earlier months show no ETI, because the amounts and wage floor in force then are not kept.

A rate under the minimum wage

If a person's pay for ordinary hours works out to less than the national minimum wage in force, Worklog says so on the Staff Register form, on the person's page and in the pay run, with the shortfall for each hour. Every worker is entitled to a wage no less than the national minimum wage, every employer must pay it, and it cannot be waived (National Minimum Wage Act section 4(4) to (6)). The wage counted is the amount payable in money for ordinary hours of work (section 5(1)), so overtime, which is pay for hours beyond ordinary hours, is not part of it. The Act also leaves out any payment made to enable a worker to work, including any transport, equipment, tool, food or accommodation allowance, and any payment in kind including board or accommodation (each unless specified otherwise in a sectoral determination), and gratuities including bonuses, tips or gifts. Pick on the Staff Register which minimum applies to the person: the general rate, the rate for an expanded public works programme, or a learnership allowance. If you have not said, Worklog compares with the general rate. It is a warning only: the pay run still saves.

When someone leaves

You do not delete a person when they stop working for you — you mark them as left. That keeps their pay history, payslips and leave record intact, and lets you still run one last pay run for their final money.

1. Open the Staff Register and tap the person.
2. Near the bottom of their profile, tap "Mark as left / terminate".
3. Set the Last day of employment.
4. Pick a Reason for leaving: Resignation, Dismissal, Retrenchment, Contract ended, Retirement, Death or Other. This is what the UI-19 to the Department of Labour needs.
5. Say whether Notice was worked, Yes or No.
6. Read the Final pay checklist, then tap "Confirm — mark as left".

The Final pay checklist is a guide to what you still owe. It shows the accrued annual leave days and a suggested leave payout (BCEA section 40: annual leave that is due and not taken is always paid out, whatever the length of service; the leave of a part-finished leave cycle, one day for every 17 days worked, is paid out too once they have worked for you longer than 4 months), the notice they are owed, and a reminder to run a final Pay Run, submit a UI-19, and issue a Certificate of Service. Notice goes by how long they worked for you (BCEA section 37): at least one week for six months or less, two weeks for more than six months but not a year, and four weeks for a year or more — or for a farm or domestic worker after six months. A contract that gives longer notice wins. No notice is owed when a fixed-term contract runs to its end date, or when someone dies: section 37 is about one side ending the contract, so the checklist leaves notice out for Contract ended and Death. It goes by how long they had worked when notice was given; if notice was not worked, that is their last day, and the checklist shows the pay instead of notice: those weeks at their ordinary week's pay (section 38). For someone paid a night-work allowance, both figures add a day's average of it over the 13 weeks to the last register day paid: the Minister's determination of remuneration (GN R691 of 2003) counts it in leave pay and notice pay.

Pick Retrenchment and the checklist adds a severance line. An employer must pay an employee dismissed for reasons based on its operational requirements at least one week's remuneration for each completed year of continuous service, worked out as section 35 says (BCEA section 41(2)). The checklist multiplies the completed years, counted from the start date, by the week's pay it uses for notice. It is not owed to an employee who unreasonably refuses an offer of alternative employment (section 41(4)), and paying it does not affect anything else they are owed by law (section 41(5)). Severance is not paid through the normal Pay Run. SARS's employer guide counts it as a severance benefit, taxed at the severance benefit rates and not as salary, only where the person is 55 or older, or is permanently incapable of holding the job through sickness, accident, injury or infirmity, or the termination is because the employer ceased (or intends to cease) the trade they were employed in, or because they became redundant in consequence of a general reduction in personnel or in personnel of a particular class. Those last two reasons (the employer ceasing the trade, and redundancy) do not count where the employer is a company and the person at any time held more than five per cent of the issued shares or members' interest in it (Income Tax Act s1, "severance benefit", paragraph (c)). Age 55 and permanent incapacity carry no such exclusion. Not every dismissal for operational requirements meets those conditions. Apply for a tax directive (form IRP3(a)) before paying it; SARS decides the treatment on the directive. Worklog does not say whether UIF is due on it, because the UIF Contributions Act's definition of remuneration was amended in 2024 and its current wording has not been read. Notice pay and leave pay go on the final Pay Run as normal pay.

Once you confirm, the person dims and drops to the bottom of the Staff Register with a "Left" tag. They are never removed, so you can still run that last Pay Run, and their profile keeps a reminder to submit the UI-19 and issue the Certificate of Service.

If someone who has left asks you to delete their personal details, tap 🧹 on their card. It permanently clears their ID number, tax number, date of birth, address, phone and bank details, and takes them off the Staff Register. Their pay runs and payslips stay, with their name on them, because SARS expects you to keep those.