How do I account for TERS payouts in my books?

TERS payouts are for employees – employers are simply facilitating the process in certain instances (the UIF are largely paying TERS directly to employees as of May). Therefore, TERS payouts received are liabilities, as they are owed to employees. They will be recorded as follows:

When receiving the payout, DEBIT Bank (bank increases) and CREDIT TERS Payout Liability (liability increases). This does not get recorded on SimplePay in any way.

When paying it out to employees, DEBIT TERS Payout Liability (liability decreases) and CREDIT Bank (bank decreases). If you use integration with Xero on SimplePay, the TERS Payout system item will be mapped to a liability account in Xero.