With many employers having now managed to traverse the process of applying for COVID-19 TERS, the questions following this often amount to: when will I hear back?; why have I received the amount I have?; how do I distribute the benefit?; or even, why has my application been declined?

In an attempt to answer these questions and support employers in correcting their applications, the Department of Employment and Labour has created an “After Application Support: COVID-19 TERS” guide.

n.b. The pdf, which can also be found on the Department of Labour website, duplicates page 1. A simple way to avoid confusion is follow the page numbers in red, located bottom middle on each page of the PDF.

Inside this guide, you can find information on the following:

• How to log into your profile after submitting an application
• How to check your payment status
• How to get a report on payments made or declined (this includes where only some staff members have been declined)
• How to complete and send the declaration and proof that you have distributed funds to your employees
• When you might need to repay the UIF and how to do this (end of page 4)

Also found within the guide is a set of Frequently asked questions, on the following topics:

• What if one or a number of employees are not present on either the successful or the rejected lists?
• How much do I pay to each employee from the amount paid into my account?
• I didn’t get paid as much as I was expecting, why might this be, and can I receive the full amount if I made an error in my submission?
• I need to add more of my employees to my claim, how do I do this?
• I have received confirmation that my CSV was uploaded correctly, but when I came back to my profile I see an error?
• What happens if Lockdown is extended?

Employers Who are Still yet to Apply for TERS

Straight off, we should state that it is still possible to claim for and receive benefits from the COVID-19 TERS scheme. The scheme shall be running for up to 3 months, only being brought to an end by way of official notice. Whilst lockdown is still affecting jobs, this is unlikely to be imminent.

Where employers have not yet made an application and have tried to apply at https://uifecc.labour.gov.za/covid19/, they have been faced with a notification that applications for May are not yet open. The reason for this notice is that the Unemployment Insurance authorities need time to work through the backlog of earlier applications, as well as discuss and make changes to the TERS system, to hopefully allow it to run more smoothly. 

Unfortunately, there is no knowing when the application process will reopen, so we advise you to keep checking in on the page. As soon as we become aware that applications are reopened, we shall communicate this with you, along with any changes which hopefully make the process less cumbersome.

We hope that this information proves useful to you. If you have any queries on how the above relates to payroll and the SimplePay system, please feel free to get in touch with our customer support team at support@simplepay.co.za.

Keep well. Stay home. Stay safe.

Team SimplePay