A cornerstone of the culture at SimplePay, which has greatly contributed to our development to date, is our commitment to continuous improvement. This culture is what drives us to continually review and critique both our processes and our system to see where we can be even better.

After thoroughly re-examining our ‘ETI employee setup’ user interface, we noted that in our efforts to make the system user friendly and flexible, the functionality was not quite up to scratch in keeping users compliant in all cases. The previous setup left opportunities for users to configure their settings in ways that did not align with the rules for ETI and the recommended method of determining ETI months.

To prevent the hassle of non-compliance with SARS from unintentional misuse of the system, we felt it prudent to make some changes to the way our ETI functionally deals with ETI months.

What is an ‘ETI Month’?

An ETI month is any month where an employee meets the ETI qualifying criteria and an employer could claim ETI for that employee. Employers can claim up to 24 months of ETI per employee. However, it’s important to note that if an employee qualifies for ETI in a particular month but no ETI is claimed for that employee, this is still considered an ETI month and will still count towards the allowable 24 months that can be claimed.

Changes to Expect

Effective from 1 September 2021, SimplePay has taken a stricter approach to calculating ETI months to ensure that users who are unfamiliar with the ETI rules do not claim more ETI than they are actually entitled to. This change may result in a spike in certain employee’s elapsed ETI months, which could result in:

• a change to the value of ETI that can be claimed for that employee if they have now moved from their first 12 qualifying months to their second 12 qualifying months (see this help page for details on calculating ETI), or
• that employee no longer qualifying for ETI due to the allowable 24 months having elapsed.

To read more about the changes please visit our help site page here.

Should you have any questions on this specific issue or just regarding SimplePay in general and any of our services, please feel free to contact support@simplepay.co.za for assistance.

Keep well and stay safe.

Team SimplePay