Payroll Simplified: Processing payroll accurately and efficiently using Skhokho.
Processing payroll is one of the most crucial—and often most stressful—functions in any business. Whether you're running a startup or managing a growing SME, getting payroll right means more than just paying salaries. It involves compliance with tax laws, calculating leave and benefits, handling deductions, and ensuring every employee is paid correctly and on time.
Unfortunately, many businesses still rely on outdated, manual methods that are prone to errors and inefficiencies. One small mistake can lead to disgruntled employees, financial penalties, and a loss of trust.
Enter Skhokho—a modern, cloud-based business management platform designed to streamline your HR and payroll operations. With built-in tools that automate calculations, integrate seamlessly with timesheets and leave records, and generate accurate payslips in minutes, Skhokho makes payroll a task you can handle with confidence.
In this blog we will be discussing the following points:
- Common Payroll Processing Challenges
- Introducing Skhokho Payroll Module
- Step-by-Step: Processing Payroll Using Skhokho
- Key Benefits of Using Skhokho for Payroll
- Tips for a Smooth Payroll Process
Common Payroll Processing Challenges
Payroll may seem straightforward—calculate hours, deduct taxes, and pay employees. But in reality, it’s a multi-layered process that demands precision, compliance, and coordination. Many small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) encounter similar stumbling blocks when trying to manage payroll internally. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most frequent and frustrating challenges businesses face—and why a digital system like Skhokho can make all the difference.
Up-to-Date Information
When a new employee joins the company, the initial onboarding often includes forms capturing their personal details, banking information, and tax registration. But what happens after that?
Over time, things change—employees move to a new address, switch banks, get promoted, or change marital status. In some companies, that original data sits untouched for years, even as employee circumstances evolve. Seven years later, you might still be paying someone based on outdated details—and only discover the issue when a payment fails or a tax record bounces.
The solution is a payroll system that enables real-time updates. Skhokho allows employees to log into their profiles and update personal information themselves, reducing the administrative load on HR and ensuring the data used for payroll is always current. It’s a simple shift that prevents major disruptions.
Manual Errors
Manual payroll processing—using spreadsheets or calculators—is one of the leading causes of payroll inaccuracies. A single typo, like an extra zero or a missed decimal, can result in massive overpayments or underpayments. Similarly, forgetting to add overtime or inputting the wrong deduction can frustrate employees and affect their trust in your business.
These errors are not only time-consuming to fix but can also damage your reputation and expose you to legal risks.
The solution? Skhokho automates payroll calculations using predefined rules for tax, benefits, and pay structures. Once set up, the system removes human error from the equation, ensuring each employee receives the correct amount—every time.
Compliance Complexities
Payroll isn’t just about paying people—it’s about doing so within the bounds of the law. From PAYE (Pay-As-You-Earn) tax to UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund) and other statutory contributions, business owners are expected to comply with ever-evolving legislation.
Keeping up with these changes—especially for businesses without a dedicated finance team—is a daunting task. Missing a single update in tax law can lead to fines, audits, or worse.
With Skhokho, compliance is built into the system. It automatically applies local tax rules and statutory deductions, so you don’t need to second-guess every change or worry about whether your calculations meet legal standards.
Disconnected Data Sources
In many businesses, payroll data lives in silos. Timesheets are on one platform, leave records in another, and employee contracts are buried in email threads or paper files. When payroll time comes around, HR and finance teams scramble to pull data from different sources—hoping nothing is missed in the process.
This fragmented approach is not only inefficient, it increases the likelihood of payroll errors.
Skhokho centralizes all critical data—timesheets, leave balances, HR records—so payroll pulls everything from a single, trusted source. No more copy-pasting from five different tools.
Time-Consuming Processes
Manual payroll isn’t just error-prone—it’s also painfully slow. Gathering data, running calculations, reviewing each line item, and generating payslips can take days. For growing businesses, this time could be better spent on planning, recruiting, or client service.
As your team expands, the inefficiencies grow with it—creating a bottleneck every pay cycle.
Skhokho automates every stage of payroll, from calculations to payslip delivery. What used to take hours or even days can now be completed in minutes.
Lack of Transparency and Audit Trail
When payroll errors occur—or when employees have questions about their earnings—it’s essential to have a clear audit trail. But many businesses still rely on manual systems that leave no record of changes, approvals, or calculations. Employees may not understand how their pay was calculated, and management may have no way to prove what happened.
Skhokho solves this with full transparency. Employees can access their own pay history and payslips, while HR and finance teams have access to detailed logs, reports, and data exports—ensuring clarity and accountability.
Inconsistent Payslip Generation
In some organizations, generating and sending payslips is an afterthought. They’re created late—or worse, forgotten entirely—leaving employees confused about their net pay or deductions. Over time, this lack of consistency erodes trust and professionalism.
With Skhokho, payslip generation is automatic and instant. Once payroll is processed, each employee receives a detailed, downloadable payslip via their portal or email—on time, every time.
Step-by-Step: Processing Payroll Using Skhokho
Processing payroll manually can feel like trying to solve a puzzle every month—with scattered inputs, tight deadlines, and zero room for error. Skhokho changes that. Designed for ease and accuracy, the platform breaks the process into clear, manageable steps. Each stage is built to minimize manual effort while maximizing control, transparency, and compliance. Here’s how the full payroll cycle works using Skhokho:
Step 1: Set Up the Employee Profile
Everything starts with the foundation: your employee records. Inside Skhokho’s HR module, each employee gets a profile containing critical payroll details. This includes salary structure, employment type (full-time, part-time, or contract), tax registration number, UIF details, benefits, and bank account information for salary deposits.
The beauty of this system is that the setup is done once—and then maintained with ease. Any changes like promotions, bonuses, or new deductions can be updated directly in the profile, with all data securely stored and readily available each time you process payroll. This reduces duplication, avoids errors, and ensures consistency across cycles.
Step 2: Sync Timesheets and Leave Records
One of the most time-consuming parts of payroll is reconciling work hours and leave data. With Skhokho, you don’t have to. The system automatically pulls approved timesheets and leave records for each employee into the payroll engine.
Whether someone worked overtime, took a few sick days, or went on paid vacation, all those adjustments are already reflected. This real-time data sync eliminates the need to manually cross-reference timesheets, saving time and reducing the chances of missed inputs or inconsistent entries.
Step 3: Run Automated Payroll Calculations
With all the data in place, Skhokho takes over the heavy lifting. The system applies preconfigured rules to calculate gross salary, PAYE (Pay-As-You-Earn) taxes, UIF contributions, benefit deductions, and any custom company-specific components.
It doesn’t stop at basic math—it also ensures alignment with current tax laws and statutory requirements, adapting to changes without needing constant manual updates. What used to take hours of spreadsheet work is now done in seconds, with precision you can trust.
Step 4: Generate and Distribute Payslips
As soon as calculations are confirmed, Skhokho automatically generates clear, professional payslips for every employee. These payslips break down all components—earnings, deductions, tax, and net pay—into an easy-to-understand format.
Distribution is equally seamless. Employees can access their payslips through their personal Skhokho portals or receive them directly via email. This instant delivery system reduces HR admin, eliminates delays, and gives employees clarity around their paychecks.
Step 5: Review Payroll Reports and Export for Records
Payroll doesn’t end with payment—it ends with visibility. Skhokho gives businesses full access to detailed payroll reports. You can review monthly summaries, individual payment histories, tax submissions, and download financial statements for compliance or accounting purposes.
Reports are available in multiple formats, including Excel and PDF, making it simple to share them with accountants, auditors, or stakeholders. With everything documented and easy to export, businesses stay ready for tax season, board meetings, or financial audits—without scrambling for paperwork.
Together, these five steps turn payroll into a fluid, repeatable process. No chasing data. No missed deductions. No uncertainty. Just a smart, integrated system that helps you pay your team correctly, on time, every time—while freeing up resources to focus on what matters most: growing your business.
Key Benefits of Using Skhokho for Payroll
Payroll doesn’t have to be a monthly source of stress. With Skhokho, it becomes a streamlined, dependable part of your business operations—one that builds trust with employees, ensures compliance with tax regulations, and saves your team countless hours in admin. Whether you're a founder managing a lean team or a growing SME with expanding HR needs, Skhokho’s Payroll Module is designed to give you confidence in every payment you process.
A Central Hub for Employee Payroll Data
One of Skhokho’s most powerful advantages is how it consolidates employee data into a single, secure location. Once you’ve captured the essentials—salary details, banking info, tax registration numbers, and employment contracts—there’s no need to re-enter or manually track this information across platforms. It’s all stored safely and remains accessible at the click of a button. This eliminates paperwork, prevents duplication, and ensures your payroll system always draws from the most accurate records.
When employee details change, like a promotion or a switch in tax brackets, those updates can be made immediately and reflected in the next payroll run—keeping everything accurate and up to date without extra effort.
Seamless Integration with Time and Leave Records
Calculating pay accurately starts with having complete data—and Skhokho makes that effortless. The platform connects directly with your employee timesheets and leave records, ensuring that actual hours worked, paid time off, sick leave, and overtime are automatically factored into payroll.
You no longer need to chase down spreadsheets, verify attendance manually, or rely on incomplete data from different departments. The real-time integration means payroll is not only faster, but also fair and transparent.
Automatic, Accurate Calculations
Handling payroll manually means juggling tax brackets, UIF contributions, deductions for benefits, and bonus allocations—each with the potential for error. Skhokho removes the guesswork. Its intelligent payroll engine processes all these elements with speed and precision, following predefined rules and local compliance frameworks.
You can trust the system to calculate everything correctly—from gross pay to final net pay—no matter how complex the setup. It adapts to South African payroll regulations and can easily adjust as laws evolve. This means fewer mistakes, no late-night spreadsheet sessions, and total peace of mind.
Payslip Generation Without the Hassle
The moment payroll is finalized, Skhokho automatically generates branded, professional payslips for each employee. These are accessible through the employee portal or delivered via email—no printing, no chasing, no manual intervention.
The payslips themselves are clear, easy to understand, and contain all the required breakdowns. Employees know exactly how their pay was calculated, and HR teams field fewer questions about deductions or adjustments.
Insightful Reporting and Easy Exports
Payroll isn’t just a payment function—it’s a key component of financial planning. Skhokho provides robust reporting tools that allow you to generate summaries, download compliance-ready tax documents, and export detailed breakdowns to Excel for audits or accountant reviews.
You always have access to a full audit trail, helping you stay accountable and prepared for tax submissions, board reporting, or even internal reviews. With these tools, payroll becomes a data-rich asset—not just an administrative task.
A Better Experience for Everyone Involved
Perhaps the most meaningful benefit of all is the improved experience for your team. Employees appreciate transparency and punctuality—they want to feel confident that their pay will be right and on time, every time. With Skhokho, they do.
HR managers benefit from fewer errors, less admin, and a more predictable workflow. And business owners? They get to step back from day-to-day payroll stress and focus on higher-impact decisions. When payroll just works, everyone wins.
Tips for a Smooth Payroll Process
A smooth payroll process isn't just about using good software—it's about embedding discipline, consistency, and accountability into your operations. While Skhokho offers powerful tools to automate and simplify payroll, the best results come when your team adopts thoughtful, repeatable habits that keep the entire workflow running seamlessly. Here’s how to ensure every payroll run is efficient, accurate, and stress-free:
i. Keep Employee Records Accurate and Up to Date
Your payroll is only as accurate as the data it’s based on. That’s why it’s essential to regularly update employee profiles with the latest information. Tax reference numbers, bank details, salary changes, new benefit entitlements—these can all change over time, and overlooking them can lead to payment errors or compliance issues.
With Skhokho, you can empower employees to manage their own profiles through a secure portal. Giving team members the ability to update their own records ensures accuracy and reduces the back-and-forth with HR. It also means fewer delays and more confidence at payroll time.
ii. Make Timely Timesheet Submissions a Team Habit
One of the most common causes of payroll delays is late or incomplete timesheet submissions. Without verified hours, payroll can’t move forward. That’s why it’s critical to build a culture of consistency around time tracking.
Skhokho’s timesheet module integrates directly with payroll, so once employees log their hours and managers approve them, the data flows automatically into the payroll engine. It eliminates manual entry and gives you a real-time view of who’s been paid for what.
iii. Finalize Leave Records Before Payroll Runs
Leave has a direct impact on what employees should be paid—especially when it comes to unpaid leave, sick leave, or excess time off. If leave isn’t accurately recorded and approved before payroll, you could end up underpaying or overpaying employees.
Skhokho’s leave tracker makes it easy to manage and monitor time off. Just make sure HR and line managers finalize all leave records before payroll is processed. This ensures the payroll engine has all the necessary inputs and that every payslip reflects reality.
iv. Always Preview Payroll Before You Hit “Submit”
Even with automation, it pays to take a final look. Skhokho’s payroll preview gives you a full breakdown of salaries, taxes, deductions, and bonuses before anything is finalized. Use this preview to double-check totals, verify changes, and spot any irregularities.
This five-minute review could save you hours of corrections later—and protects your team from unpleasant surprises on payday.
v. Stick to a Predictable Payroll Schedule
Routine builds reliability. Choose a consistent payroll date (e.g. the 25th of each month) and communicate it clearly with your team. This consistency not only helps internal departments like HR and finance plan ahead, but it also creates peace of mind for employees who rely on predictable payments.
Skhokho allows you to schedule recurring payroll cycles, making it easy to stay on track even during busy periods.
vi. Use Reporting Tools for Planning, Not Just Processing
Payroll is a valuable source of insight—if you know how to use it. Skhokho’s reporting features allow you to dive deep into labor costs, analyze pay trends, and track how your payroll changes over time.
Don’t wait until year-end to crunch the numbers. Use payroll data as an ongoing planning tool to forecast expenses, support hiring decisions, and assess budget impact.
vii. Back Up Your Reports and Payslips Regularly
Even though Skhokho stores your payroll data securely in the cloud, it’s good practice to export monthly reports and keep an organized digital archive. Having quick access to historical records can be a lifesaver during audits, tax season, or compliance reviews.
Create a standard practice—perhaps at the end of each payroll cycle—to download and store your key documents. It’s a small habit that offers big protection down the line.
By combining the structure of these habits with the automation and intelligence of Skhokho, you create a payroll process that’s not only compliant—but truly effortless.
