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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.