Accounting, tax and SARS questions, answered

Xero recognises accounting practices by the number of clients they support on Xero and the certification their staff hold. Partner status means our team is trained and assessed on Xero, and that we work in it every day rather than occasionally.

In practice it means your books and our books are the same file. You are not emailing backups, and we are not working from a copy that is two months old.

The practical differences are daily bank feeds, access from anywhere without a server, and your accountant seeing the same live data you do. Most owners notice that VAT and month-end stop being a scramble.

Switching is not always right. If you have complex manufacturing or heavily customised reports, we will tell you to stay where you are.

A straightforward small business is usually live within two to three weeks, most of which is waiting for bank feeds to activate.

You do not lose history. We agree a conversion date, bring across balances and, where it is useful, transaction history. Your old system stays available as a read-only record.

Xero publishes its South African subscription prices by plan, and they change from time to time, so we quote the current figure when we scope your setup rather than printing a price that goes stale.

Our fee for setup, migration and training is quoted separately and once-off. The monthly Xero subscription can be billed to you directly or through us.

Xero's built-in payroll is not designed for South African PAYE, UIF, SDL and IRP5 requirements. We run payroll in a South African payroll system that integrates with Xero, so the journals land in your books automatically.

You get compliant EMP201 and EMP501 submissions and a clean set of books, without double capturing.

The EMP201 declaration and payment are due by the 7th of the month following the payroll month, or the last business day before the 7th when it falls on a weekend or public holiday.

Late payment attracts a penalty on the amount due plus interest. The declaration must still be filed, so the fastest fix is to submit and pay, then deal with the penalty.

You need compliant payslips, PAYE and UIF calculations, EMP201 submissions, EMP501 reconciliations and IRP5 certificates, whether you have two employees or fifty. A spreadsheet rarely produces all of that correctly.

For very small teams our payroll fee is modest, and it removes the risk of a reconciliation that does not balance at year end.

IRP5 certificates are produced from the annual EMP501 reconciliation after the end of the tax year in February, once SARS opens the submission period.

Employees cannot file their own returns until the IRP5 data reaches SARS, so a late reconciliation holds up your whole team.

Employers must register for UIF and contribute for employees who work more than 24 hours a month, including domestic workers. Contributions are shared between employer and employee.

We handle the registration and the monthly declarations along with your payroll.

Yes. The Basic Conditions of Employment Act requires employers to give employees written particulars of employment when they start work.

Without a signed contract you are in a weak position in any dispute, and the CCMA will generally accept the employee's version of the terms.

We prepare and maintain the employment paperwork that a dispute turns on: contracts, policies, warnings and records. We do not represent employers at the CCMA.

Where a matter needs representation we refer you to a labour specialist and give them a properly documented file.

It depends on the purpose and the state of your records. A valuation for an internal shareholder buy-out is lighter work than one that must withstand a court or a buyer's due diligence.

We scope it first and quote a fixed fee, so the cost is known before we start.

For an owner-managed trading business we usually normalise earnings, remove owner-specific costs, and apply a multiple supported by the risk profile and the sector, then sanity-check it against net asset value and cash flow.

The method follows the purpose. A valuation for a divorce, an estate, a bank and a trade buyer can legitimately produce different numbers, and the report explains why.

Two to three years is ideal. Buyers pay for clean financial statements, contracts that survive your departure, and profits that are not dependent on the owner personally.

A year of tidy books is worth more at the negotiating table than any amount of explaining.

Fees depend on transaction volume, whether you are VAT registered, how many employees you have and how current your records are. A small business with clean books costs a fraction of one that needs years rebuilt.

We quote a fixed monthly fee after a short review, so you know the figure before you commit. We will also tell you if you do not need us monthly.

Our office is in Amanzimtoti, and we work with businesses along the KZN South Coast from Durban South down to Scottburgh.

Because your books are in the cloud, most clients deal with us by phone, email and video, and come in when it matters. You are welcome either way.

When decisions are getting expensive: hiring, taking on debt, opening a second location, or pricing a big contract. At that point monthly management accounts and a forecast pay for themselves.

Below that, solid bookkeeping and an annual planning conversation is usually enough, and we will say so.

Monthly if you have staff, stock or debt. Quarterly is enough for a stable business with simple operations.

The value is in the comparison over time, not in any single month's figures.