COVID-19 TERS Update

Hello and welcome to another TERS update blog 🙂 The UIF released another TERS update on 6 November, which addressed some of the outstanding issues still being experienced by TERS applicants. You can read our summary of their previous update letter from 19 October in this blog post.

Please note that if you aren’t currently experiencing issues with TERS, you don’t need to change anything on your current TERS profile or applications. However, we still encourage you to read this post in case it covers actions you need to take in the future.

Bank Verification Issues

If your TERS profile is showing that your bank verification has been unsuccessful, the UIF has released advice for certain situations.

If your company bank account was:

1. Opened in the name of an individual – rather than using the “Trade Name” bank verification, you should use the individual’s RSA ID number to verify the account.
2. Opened by a partnership / dual account holders – Use the “Trade Name” verification and insert the exact name of the bank account profile.

N.B. The above advice should be read alongside that provided in our previous blog post, linked here for ease of reference.

You should only make changes to your verification details if your bank account verification status registers as failed. Trade Name verification can take a number of days to be verified by your bank, so if you made the change recently, this might still be being processed.

Refunds

If you have refunded a sum to the UIF for any TERS overpayments and want a receipt for this refund, you can get this by completing the following steps:

1. Log in to the TERS portal.
2. On the red banner, click “Employer Details”, then Refunds to UIF.
3. Enter your UIF reference number and Click Proceed.
4. A table will appear with the refunds you’ve made, their amounts and the date of each refund.

Letter of Authority

If you have assigned the TERS application process to a member of staff or outsourced it, the individual needs a letter of authority in order to act on behalf of your company. Having logged on to the TERS portal, there will be a box titled “Applicant Information”. If under “Applicant Type” you select ORGANISATION STAFF or EMPLOYER REPRESENTATIVE, it is necessary to upload a letter of Authority.

The letter of authority needs to be on your company letterhead and must provide the details of your employee or employer representative. It must also state that they have had consent from the company to act for the full or the full relevant period – please confirm the dates with the UIF if you’re unsure.

UI-19s For Undeclared Employees

SimplePay cuts through admin by generating the necessary employee UI-19 forms for TERS and UIF claims for you (see our help site).

If for any reason some of your employees have not been declared to the UIF, they can’t receive TERS benefits. From 11 November 2020,  you will be able to declare these employees to the UIF by downloading and completing a Microsoft Excel template from the TERS portal. 

The Excel containing the information of any undeclared employees should then be sent to digitalui18@labour.gov.za.

Switching from TERS to UIF Benefits

If your employees are no longer able to receive TERS benefits, you may wish to switch them onto claiming UIF benefits. If you do this, you must ensure that the date of termination on their UI 19 does not overlap with the last period that they had the TERS benefit claimed.

For example, if the last period for which your employees were eligible for TERS was the June period (1 to 30 June 2020), the termination date on your UI 19 needs to be 1 July 2020. If instead you selected 30 June 2020, The UIF’s system would flag this, as on 30 June your employee would receive both UIF and TERS benefits. If you submit a UI 19 form with overlapping dates there are safeguards in place to stop dual payment, but doing this will likely delay your employees’ applications.

We hope that this information has proved useful to you. If you have any questions on how the information above relates to SimplePay, please feel free to contact us at info@simplepay.co.za. 

Equally, if you are not yet a client of SimplePay but would like to be, why not check out our website? Or, better yet, try out our service for free with our 30-day trial, get acquainted with our user-friendly service by reading our getting started page, or take our free online course. 

Keep well and stay safe.

Team SimplePay