What this is for
Worklog is a calculation aid, not a filing channel (yet) — the actual return is submitted on SARS eFiling. To make that painless, the VAT201 and EMP201 pages each have a “File this on eFiling — step by step” guide that names the exact eFiling field for every figure Worklog computed. VAT201 comes with the Complete plan and EMP201 from Team — on a smaller plan the tab shows 🔒 and See the plans.
How to use it
Open SARS and choose the VAT tab (or the Employees’ tax tab for EMP201), pick the period, and tap the step-by-step guide. Log in to eFiling in another tab, open the matching return, and copy each figure into the field the guide names. eFiling calculates its own total — check it matches Worklog's to the cent before you submit.
After you submit
Come back and tap “✔️ Mark VAT201 as filed” (or EMP201). That writes your own filing record — what was filed, for which period, when. On the VAT201 a box below it also asks whether you have paid yet, what you actually paid SARS, the date, and which account it left, and logs that payment as an expense in the same act — so don’t capture the EFT again from your bank statement. The EMP201 has no such box on purpose: your pay run already booked the PAYE, UIF and SDL on pay day. Once a VAT201 is marked filed, Worklog keeps what it worked out — the figures, and the entries behind them that the return reads. If a figure of that return changes afterwards, the VAT201 screen says so at the top (⚠️ Changed since you marked it filed), listing the entries added, removed or changed that moved it, and it shows under Needs you today. (Once you have recorded that you dealt with a change, the card lists no entries: the figures say what moved against what SARS holds, and your Audit Log says who changed what.) A change that moves no figure — a bank fee logged late, a purchase with no VAT corrected — says nothing. And an entry a filed VAT201 was worked out from (on the invoice basis; on the payments basis, the money received or paid in that period, including what settles an opening invoice or bill and a supplier refund you received, and the invoice, bill or credit note that sets how much VAT it carried) can't have its VAT, its link or its period changed (or a sale's amount), or be removed, or be re-filed so that the VAT the return read changes — a purchase moved into entertainment, staff welfare, a club membership or a passenger car, say: Worklog says so instead. Zero-rated and exempt sales are on the return too (fields 2 and 3), so their amount, their period and removing them are held the same way, even with no VAT on them. On the invoice basis two re-files still save, and the check above names them if they move a figure: a zero-rated or exempt sale moved to a heading that isn't a sale (a loan, say), and a purchase moved between capital goods (field 14) and other purchases (field 15) (on the payments basis both are held, because each moves what the return declared, while a re-file that moves no field, Materials to Fuel say, still saves). A note, a slip, a reconcile tick or a re-file that leaves the VAT the return read as it was still saves. So does anything the return didn't read — an entry added late or imported twice into that period, a purchase with no VAT claimed, a purchase whose VAT the Act denies (entertainment, staff welfare, a passenger car, a club membership: no return ever held that VAT, VAT Act s17(2)), a payment matched to its invoice; if one of those moves a figure, the check above names it. VAT claimed on a purchase dated in that period after you marked it filed — an entry added or imported late with its VAT, or one saved with no VAT and claimed later — doesn't go on that return: it counts on your next VAT201 not yet filed, which lists it as claimed late under its own date, and the filed return stays as you filed it. Money Out says so before you save, and Needs you today names VAT claimed late on a return you haven’t filed yet, so you can check each purchase has its tax invoice — and that none was imported twice — before you file it. More can't be claimed on an entry whose late claim is already on a filed return, and VAT that would land on a return ending more than five years after the end of the VAT period in which the supplier's 21 days to issue the tax invoice ran out can't be claimed at all (VAT Act s16(3)). The same goes for a supplier invoice: one dated in a period whose VAT201 you have marked filed, and saved afterwards, has its VAT counted on your next VAT201 not yet filed (the whole invoice moves, listed as claimed late under its own date), and the invoice form says so before you save. If you already logged the purchase in Money Out, remove the invoice (keep it as that payment’s slip) or save it with no VAT to claim, so its VAT is not claimed twice; link that payment to the invoice only if its VAT is not on a filed return, because a filed return’s lock refuses a link or a removal there. If you work on the payments basis it is a payment you record for such an invoice, dated in a period whose VAT201 is marked filed, that moves, with its part of the invoice's VAT (Money Out says so before you save); a payment dated in a period not yet filed counts on its own return. On the payments basis the lock follows that move: a payment or a late claim that moved to your next open return is held by that return once it is filed, and the filed return it was dated in is not touched by it. Once the return an invoice moved to is marked filed, that return holds it as the first one would; and an invoice or payment dated so long ago that its VAT would land on a return ending more than five years after the end of the VAT period in which the supplier's 21 days to issue the tax invoice ran out is refused, in words that say so. A supplier credit note is different. On the invoice basis it counts in the period it was issued (VAT Act s21(6)) — the form asks for the date on the supplier’s credit note, and an approval never changes it — so one dated in a period whose VAT201 you have marked filed counts there, and that return shows as changed (⚠️ Changed since you marked it filed) until you have put it right with SARS and told Worklog. On the payments basis it does not count by its date alone: see below. The card says where each figure is put right, and what to type, by eFiling’s own field numbers. A figure that fell, or output tax that moved up or down, goes by a Request for Correction on eFiling (SARS’s VAT 404 guide, section 10.3.1): SARS has the return as an original assessment. SARS opens the revised return with few fields filled in and wants all of it, not the difference (SARS’s VAT201 guide, section 11.2(a)(iii), (h) and (i)), so the card lists every field to type (when you revise a return for the second time onwards, version 3, SARS’s guide asks for supporting documents with it, section 11(b)(v)): fields 1 and 1A with the VAT included, fields 2, 3 and 12, and fields 14, 15, 17 and 18, a field that moved at its new figure and a claim that rose kept at what SARS holds. The form works out fields 4, 4A, 13, 19 and 20 itself, so you never type those. An input tax claim that rose (field 15, say, when a credit note takes the tools off field 14; fields 17 and 18 the same) can’t be added to a return SARS already has, so you claim the extra on your next VAT201, within five years (SARS’s VAT201 guide, section 11.1(b); VAT Act s16(3), proviso). Worklog still shows that rise on the filed return, and its own VAT201 for the next period does not carry it: type the extra in by hand. When you have done it, tap I’ve dealt with this on the card and tick what you did: one thing ticked is enough (a Request for Correction on its own, say), and what you leave unticked stays on the card for later. You pick the VAT201 you claimed the extra on from the list Worklog gives you (the later returns you have filed, whatever your VAT cycle was then, the returns your last record already names, and your next one on your current cycle): you never type it, and a period before this one is not offered, because a claim can only move to a later period (VAT Act s16(3), proviso). Worklog refuses a period more than five years after this one (SARS’s VAT201 guide, section 11.1(b)), and a period off your current cycle that you never filed and your last record does not name. When you tick that you filed a Request for Correction, Worklog records the day you told it, not the day SARS received the correction: SARS holds the Request for Correction, and the card says only “You told Worklog on that day that you corrected this return with SARS.” Worklog then shows you what you are recording and asks you to confirm. If you have the page open in two tabs and the record changed in the other, Worklog asks you to reload instead of overwriting it. Take back this record undoes your last record: Worklog keeps it in its history, changes no figure, and goes back to the record before it, or to the return as you filed it. Worklog records the date, what you ticked, what SARS now holds for the period and the extra you claimed later, beside the filing, and changes none of the figures you filed. From then on it compares your books with what SARS now holds plus what you claimed later, not with the return as first filed: the card goes while they agree, a further rise is worked from what you already claimed, and if your books go back to the figures you first filed after a Request for Correction, the card shows again, because SARS holds the corrected return. You can do this more than once: Worklog keeps each record, and when a claim falls back it names each later VAT201 and the amount to take off it. A later VAT201 that is itself filed and carries an extra you claimed on it by hand is corrected with that extra kept. If you take that extra, or part of it, off the later VAT201, tell Worklog on the later VAT201’s own card: it names the earlier return and the amount that record says is claimed there, and I took it off asks how much you took off (the box starts empty: type the amount, for example 1500.00 or 1 500,00) and records exactly that amount, never more. While anything is claimed there, the card shows each take-off already recorded, from either card, with its own amount and day. After the first, the button reads I took off a further amount, and it records only the extra you type, up to what is still claimed there, even after the whole claim was taken off once. Record a take-off in one place only: on the earlier return’s card or on the later one, not both. The part you left stays on the record, so it cannot be claimed a second time. A take-off recorded from the later return is taken back from the earlier return’s card (Take back this record). The later return then stops asking you to keep what you took off. A take-off recorded after the day you marked the later return filed counts as a revision of it, so a further correction there asks for supporting documents once it would be version 3 (SARS’s VAT201 guide, section 11(b)(v)). The card shows this control even when that return’s own books have not changed. A return filed before Worklog split out field 1A is corrected with the capital goods you sold in field 1A, with their VAT in field 4A, and not in field 1 (SARS’s VAT201 guide, section 7.6(d)(i)); a Request for Correction is accepted only in the new format (section 11(b)(iii)). When a correction only moves a claim between fields, such as field 15 to field 14, the tax over the two returns is the same, but the correction leaves that amount more payable, or refunded too much, on the past return, so SARS may charge a late-payment penalty and interest on the shortfall (VAT 404 guide, section 10.3). Don’t undo the filing and mark it filed again for a claim that rose: that writes the extra into a return SARS never accepted it on. The one exception is a credit note for an invoice that moved to a later VAT201 not yet filed (above): no input tax was deducted on the filed return, so there is nothing to adjust, and the credit note counts on that later return with the invoice, in field 12, listed under its own date and marked “with its late invoice”; the filed return stays as you filed it. On the invoice basis the credit note form and its sheet say which of the two it is before and after you save. On either basis nothing stops you saving it: the credit note is real, so Worklog records it when you capture it, with the date on the supplier’s credit note. On the payments basis Worklog does not count a supplier credit note by its date. One taken off the invoice it is for does nothing on its own date: it lowers the VAT that payments of that invoice made on or after that date claim. One for an invoice already paid in full by its date, or one kept on account (the part beyond what the invoice still owed stays on account too), counts only when it is refunded (on the day of the refund) or applied to another invoice (on the day it is applied). That is the rule of the VAT Act on this basis (section 16(4)(b)(i)): the credit note's VAT follows the money. A filed return changes only when one of those payments or days falls in it; the card then shows each figure that moved, field 14 and field 15 apart, and the route for each: a fall by a Request for Correction, a rise on your next VAT201 (above). Where you pay or receive money in a period whose VAT201 is marked filed on the payments basis and Worklog says it can’t, the same two routes apply to what you wanted to change. A bill’s price, VAT or lines can’t be changed while a payment of it, a refund of it, or a credit note issued after something was paid on it sits in a filed return, unless the bill has no VAT to claim. Once the later return is marked filed it holds the credit note as it holds the invoice. Undoing a filing leaves VAT already moved off it on the later return — unless you change that entry’s VAT, date or category while the later return is still open, which puts it back on its own period. A purchase the return claimed VAT on can't then be linked to a bill that arrives later — linking takes its VAT off the return. It is already in your books: keep the bill as that purchase's proof (attach it as its slip if it has none — SARS can ask for the tax invoice), remove the bill you captured (the VAT Act, s16(2): input tax is deducted against a tax invoice, and the purchase’s VAT is already on the filed return, so claiming it again from the bill would claim it twice). Check each entry against your records and correct one that is wrong where you can. If a change is right and it lowers a claim on the filed return, or lowers or raises its output tax, SARS’s way is a Request for Correction on eFiling (VAT 404 guide, section 10.3.1); then tap I’ve dealt with this on the card. Once you have recorded a Request for Correction, Worklog won’t let you undo that filing: SARS holds a corrected return, and undoing it would lose that record. If the record is only an extra claimed on a later return, SARS holds the return as you filed it, but Worklog still won’t undo it, because the record would be lost and the same claim could be made twice. If your last record is wrong, take it back with Take back this record on the card, and the undo is judged on what is left. Don’t take back a record that is true just to undo the filing: SARS still holds the corrected return, or the extra you claimed on a later VAT201, whatever Worklog records, and Worklog would only lose track of it. Where you have recorded nothing and no claim rose, you can instead undo the filing on the VAT201 screen, make the change, and mark it filed again: marking again writes today’s figures into the filed return. A change that would raise an input tax claim can’t go on that return: claim the extra on your next VAT201 by hand, because Worklog’s own next VAT201 does not carry it (VAT201 guide, section 11.1(b)). If your VAT period has changed since, that screen shows the new periods: the owner sets the VAT period in Business details back to what it was to show the old one, undoes it, then sets it again. A VAT201 can't be undone while a later VAT201 is still filed: undo the later one first, and Worklog names it. Nor once its record holds a correction, as above. Marking a return filed, and undoing it, are both in your Audit Log.
Good to know
The guide covers the common case. Bad debts written off in Adjustments (Customer won't pay) are worked out for you and go in field 17; adjustments, imports and other special VAT fields, and ETI details on EMP201, are worth a check with your accountant before submitting. Costs that usually carry no VAT — fuel, interest, life cover, international flights, the rates on a municipal account — are flagged when you log them, not on the VAT201: pick the category on a money-out line in Banking → + Add and a note appears under it, so you can check the slip before you claim VAT on it.