If you walk into a South African accounting practice and ask what they run payroll on, this is still the most common answer. Pastel Payroll has been maintained against SARS requirements for decades, the statutory pack is complete, and there is no shortage of people who can operate it.
It is a desktop product with optional cloud backup and an employee self service add on. The same argument that applies to Pastel accounting applies here: for a business with unreliable connectivity, running payroll locally is a genuine operational advantage on the last working day of the month.
Statutory coverage
Complete and reliable. EMP201, EMP501, IRP5 and IT3(a), e@syFile, UIF, SDL, ETI and COIDA. Annual compliance updates arrive before the tax year end, which is the only date that really matters. Bargaining council support is available for the sectors that need it, generally through the mid tier build.
What it costs you
The licensing model is the frustration. It is banded by employee count, so crossing a band boundary produces a step change in cost that catches people out. Additional modules are separately licensed. The all in figure for a growing business is frequently higher than a cloud per employee product at the same headcount, and it is harder to predict.
The interface is dated in the same way Pastel accounting is dated. Experienced operators are extremely fast in it. New ones are slow for a while, and the training is a real cost.
Who should buy it
Businesses whose payroll administrator already knows Pastel, practices running payroll as a service for multiple clients, and anyone who needs payroll to work when the connection does not. Businesses starting fresh should compare it honestly against SimplePay on total cost before defaulting to it.
CS
South AfricaPolokwane11 to 50 employees
