Run Your First Payroll

Running payroll on Stokly takes about 10 minutes once your employees are set up. This walkthrough assumes you've already added departments, employees, and salaries.

Before you start

Confirm the following are in place:

• At least one Department exists.
• Each Employee has a valid SA ID number (or passport), start date, and bank details.
• Each employee has a current Salary record with an effective date ≤ the pay period.
• The correct tax year (e.g. 2026/2027) is seeded (Stokly handles this automatically; falls back to the latest available year).
• Email Settings are configured if you plan to email payslips.

Step 1 — Create a payroll period

1. Navigate to HR & Payroll → Payroll Periods.
2. Click Create Period.
3. Fill in:
   • Period name (e.g. "April 2026").
   • Start and end dates (e.g. 1 April – 30 April 2026).
   • Pay date (when employees will be paid, e.g. 25 April).
4. Select which employees to include. By default, all active employees are selected.
5. Click Save.

You're taken to the period detail page with a list of payslip drafts.

Step 2 — Review each payslip

Stokly has already calculated the basic totals for each employee. Click on any payslip to see:

• Basic salary (from the Salary record).
• Allowances (travel, cell phone, crypto — if configured).
• Overtime — pulled from approved Overtime Entries for the period.
• Bonuses — if any bonus payments are scheduled.
• Expense claims — auto-included if approved.
• PAYE — calculated using SARS brackets, rebates, and medical credits.
• UIF — 1% employee + 1% employer, capped.
• SDL — 1% employer (if above annual threshold).
• Net pay — what the employee receives.

Add ad-hoc adjustments (e.g. a one-time reimbursement) using the + Add Line button. Changes are saved immediately.

Step 3 — Check totals at the period level

Back on the period page, you'll see summary totals:

• Gross pay across all employees.
• Total PAYE, UIF, SDL, net pay.
• Department breakdown.

Verify nothing looks dramatically off compared to last month (use the Payroll Comparison Report under HR & Payroll → Reports).

Step 4 — Process the period

When you're happy, click Process Payroll at the top of the period page. This:

• Finalises each payslip (no more edits allowed).
• Generates a PDF for every employee.
• Creates the payroll journal entry (if Bookkeeping is enabled):
  • DR Salaries Expense
  • DR Employer UIF / SDL
  • CR PAYE Payable
  • CR UIF Payable
  • CR SDL Payable
  • CR Bank (net pay)
  • CR Crypto Asset (if crypto allowance)
• Stamps the leave balances (no longer accrues for the period).

Step 5 — Email payslips

Click Email Payslips. You have two choices:

• Send all — email every employee in one click.
• Select individual — email specific employees (useful for corrections).

Each employee receives a secure, branded PDF of their payslip attached to the email. If the employee has portal access, they can also download historic payslips directly.

Step 6 — Pay employees and SARS

• Employees — use the payroll register PDF (downloadable from the period page) to do your bulk EFT payment.
• SARS — go to HR & Payroll → EMP201 for the aggregated monthly declaration. Submit and pay on SARS e@syFile.

Year-end

Once all 12 periods for a tax year are processed, go to HR & Payroll → IRP5 to generate annual tax certificates for every employee. Export for SARS e@syFile.

Troubleshooting

• PAYE shows R0.00 — the employee's annual income may be below the tax threshold, or the tax year isn't seeded. Check HR & Payroll → Tax Tables.
• UIF not calculating — check the employee has UIFContributor = true on their record.
• Can't process period — an employee has missing salary data or invalid banking details. Fix and retry.
• Journal entry not created — confirm your plan has HasBookkeeping = true. Standalone PayrollOnly plans don't post to the GL.

Next: Learn how to handle leave requests and track overtime so they flow automatically into payroll.