FAQ

Answers from the
payroll desk.

The questions South African finance and operations teams ask before they switch to payloop — SARS compliance, banking, pricing, POPIA, and the API. If something below is unclear or missing, write to [email protected] and we’ll answer in person.

Last updated 2026-05-27SARS 2026/27 tax yearPOPIA-aligned
00

SARS, PAYE, UIF & SDL

Statutory South African payroll, calculated against the live SARS brackets and submitted on your eFiling account.

  • Does payloop handle PAYE, UIF and SDL?
    Yes. payloop calculates PAYE on the live SARS 2026/27 brackets, applies the R 17 820 primary rebate, computes UIF at 1% + 1% up to the R 17 712 monthly ceiling, and adds SDL at 1% for employers above the R 500 000 annual threshold.
  • Does payloop file with SARS?
    payloop stages your EMP201 and IRP5/IT3(a) values from each run and exports the e@syFile-compatible files. You submit on eFiling — we make the numbers and the paperwork trivial.
  • Which tax year do the brackets follow?
    We mirror the SARS tax year that runs 1 March to 28/29 February. payloop is updated the day the Minister of Finance tables the budget, so the brackets, rebates and thresholds you run against are always current.
  • Do you handle travel allowance, medical aid credits and retirement?
    Yes. Travel allowance (80/20 inclusion), medical scheme fees tax credits, pension, provident and retirement annuity contributions are all calculated with the correct fringe-benefit and deduction treatment, and they flow through to the IRP5 codes automatically.
  • Can payloop handle directors and variable earners?
    Yes. We support directors on a deemed-remuneration basis, commission earners, weekly and fortnightly wage cycles, and irregular bonuses. The PAYE for the period is calculated on the year-to-date method that SARS expects.
01

Banking & payments

payloop never moves money — we generate the file your bank already understands and hand it back to your authorised signatory.

  • Which South African banks does payloop export to?
    payloop generates bank-ready CSV files for FNB, Standard Bank, Capitec, Nedbank, Absa and Investec. You upload the file to your bank's bulk payment screen — payloop never moves money.
  • Does payloop debit our account directly?
    No. payloop is not a payment processor. We produce the exact file format your bank's bulk-payment portal expects; the authorisation and release happen inside your bank's own workflow, with your bank's own approvals.
  • How do payslips reach employees?
    Encrypted PDF payslips are emailed to each employee on the run date with a signed, time-limited download link. Employees can also self-serve from the payloop portal with passwordless sign-in.
02

Pricing & plans

Flat, predictable, per-employee pricing. No setup fees, no contract.

  • How much does payloop cost?
    From R 299 per month for up to ten employees, with a flat per-employee fee thereafter. No setup fees, no contract, cancel any time. See the pricing section on the home page for current tiers.
  • What is the per-employee fee?
    R 30 per employee per month on the Starter plan and R 45 per employee per month on Scale, which adds API access, approvals and SSO. You only pay for active employees in a given run.
  • Is there a free trial?
    Your first full payroll run is free. You can import your team, run a parallel month against your existing provider, and only pay once you're ready to run for real.
  • Can I cancel any time?
    Yes. payloop is month-to-month with no minimum term. If you cancel, you keep read-only access to your historical runs and IRP5 exports for the rest of the tax year at no extra cost.
03

Security & POPIA

Bank-level controls on the salary, banking and tax data of every person on your payroll.

  • Is payloop POPIA-compliant?
    Yes. Employee PII and bank details are encrypted at rest using AES-256, audit-logged, hosted on South African infrastructure, and never sold or shared with third parties.
  • Where is our data stored?
    Production databases and backups are hosted in South African data centres. Cross-border processing happens only under POPIA-permitted safeguards and never includes payroll content.
  • Who on the payloop team can see our payroll?
    Production access is least-privilege, named-role and short-lived, with hardware-backed multi-factor authentication. Every privileged session is recorded for audit. See our security page for the full controls list.
  • Do you offer a Data Processing Addendum?
    Yes. A POPIA-aligned operator / responsible-party DPA is available on request from [email protected], along with our sub-processor list and a summary of our security controls for your vendor-risk review.
04

Switching & implementation

Most teams are running their first parallel payroll on payloop within a week.

  • Can we import from SimplePay, Sage or PaySpace?
    Yes. We import employee master data, year-to-date earnings, deductions and tax balances from CSV exports of SimplePay, Sage Business Cloud Payroll and PaySpace. Your YTD numbers carry forward correctly into the next IRP5.
  • How long does onboarding take?
    A typical team of under fifty employees is set up in a single morning. We provide a parallel-run template so you can verify the first payloop run against your current provider before going live.
  • Do you offer support?
    Yes. Email support on every plan with a one-business-day response, and a shared Slack or Microsoft Teams channel on Scale. South African business hours, by a South African payroll specialist.
05

API & integrations

A first-class REST API for product teams that want payroll to live alongside the rest of the business.

  • Is there a payroll API?
    Yes. payloop exposes a REST + JSON API with idempotent endpoints, signed webhooks, and an OpenAPI 3.1 spec. Run a payroll, export a bank file, and pull signed payslips with a handful of HTTP calls.
  • Which events fire webhooks?
    Payroll-run lifecycle (drafted, approved, finalised), employee changes, payslip generation, and statutory-export readiness all emit signed webhooks. Each delivery is retried with exponential backoff and is verifiable from its HMAC signature.
  • Does payloop integrate with accounting software?
    Yes. We export journal entries to Xero, Sage Business Cloud Accounting and QuickBooks, mapped to your chart of accounts. Cost-centre splits and accruals are preserved.

Still have a question?

Email [email protected] and a payroll specialist will reply within one business day. Prefer to see it for yourself? Run a parallel payroll against your current provider with our first-run-free trial.