Ledgr/Documentation/SARS returns

SARS returns

Watch the lesson: Prepare a VAT201 and download it (2:01).

Every return computed from the ledger you already posted to, ready to download, with a calendar that counts down and a record of what you filed when.

The overview

Each tax type on a card showing the filing frequency, when you last noted it as filed and when the next one is due. Underneath, the tax calendar lists the upcoming deadlines sorted by urgency with a countdown on each. The same countdown appears on the dashboard. A panel spells out where each downloaded return goes — eFiling or e@syFile.

Group overview. When you may open more than one company, the overview offers Group overview: every company you have access to on one page, each with its business type, the next due date of each of its returns, the last one you noted as filed, and anything overdue. It lists only the companies you could open from the company switcher — a company you have not been given access to is not on it.

VAT201

1. Reconcile the period first

   Unreconciled bank transactions and uncaptured supplier invoices are the two things that make a VAT201 wrong. Clear them before you look at the numbers.

2. SARS → VAT201, choose the period

   The day after a VAT period ends, Ledgr prepares its VAT201 for you: it appears in the register as Prepared, to review and download. It is never filed for you. Switch this off in Settings → Tax & VAT → Month end.

   It opens on your most recent closed VAT period, as long as your VAT category makes it — two months for Categories A and B, one month for Category C — so set the category in Settings first. With no category set it assumes Category C, opens on the previous month, and says so beside the return. Ledgr computes output VAT from the invoices you issued and input VAT from the expenses and bills you captured.

3. Check the boxes against your own expectation

   Standard-rated, zero-rated and exempt supplies are separated, as are capital and non-capital input claims. The payable or refundable figure is the difference.

   The numbers are SARS's own: a change in use is in fields 10 and 11, and fields 5 to 9 are commercial accommodation (a guest house, a B&B, a hotel). Lines typed as accommodation are declared there and not in field 1: a stay of 28 days or less in field 7, the days after the 28th of an unbroken stay in field 5 (only 60% of that charge is taxed, field 6), and their output tax in field 9.

4. Download the return and capture it on eFiling

   The PDF lists every VAT201 field in eFiling's own order; the CSV is the same for a spreadsheet. Read down the column into eFiling and submit it there.

   Support pack (CSV) lists every document behind the return — each invoice, credit note, supplier bill and expense claim, with its value, its VAT and the field it is in — and each field's total, which is the figure on the return. Keep it with the return: it is what a SARS verification letter asks you for.

5. Note it in the filing register

   Once you have filed on eFiling, "note it in the register" stores the period with a Ledgr reference so the next period opens from a clean base and your history is complete. That reference is Ledgr's own — SARS issues its own on eFiling, and that is the one to quote to them.

Invoice basis or payments basis

Most vendors account for VAT on the invoice basis: output VAT in the period you issue an invoice, input VAT in the period your supplier's invoice is dated. If SARS has registered you on the payments basis, set it under Settings → Tax & VAT, with the month it starts from. Ledgr then declares output VAT in the period your customer pays you — a part payment declares its share — and input VAT in the period you pay your supplier.

• Who may use it. Only a natural person whose taxable supplies over twelve months stay under R2.5 million: a sole proprietor, or a partnership whose every partner is a natural person. Ledgr does not ask what each partner is, so check that yourself before you choose it for a partnership. Ledgr refuses the setting for any other business, and warns on the return if your supplies have since gone over the limit.
• A large sale is declared when you invoice it. The VAT Act requires a payments-basis vendor to account on the invoice basis for a sale of R100 000 or more, VAT included (fixed property aside). Ledgr declares such an invoice's VAT in the period it is issued, and its payments then declare nothing further. A sale of less than that follows the money as above.
• A change is dated. It starts on the first day of a tax period. Returns for earlier periods stay on the basis they were filed on, and each invoice follows the basis in force when it was issued, so nothing is declared twice or missed when you switch. A change cannot start inside a period whose VAT201 you have already marked as filed, or inside a locked accounting period: Ledgr names the return or the period and the first month the change may start from.
• Credit notes follow their money too. On the payments basis a credit note reduces your output VAT when you pay the refund or apply its credit to one of the customer's invoices, not when you issue it. Applying a credit note to an invoice moves no VAT at all: the invoice's share and the credit note's cancel.
• Your VAT accounts still record VAT when invoices are issued, so on the payments basis they differ from the return by the VAT on invoices and bills not yet paid. The return says so, with the amounts, instead of warning.
• Moving from the payments basis to the invoice basis (section 15(7)): the VAT201 for the period the change falls in declares the output VAT on every sale still unpaid the day before (field 12) less the input VAT on every bill still unpaid (field 18), and paying those documents afterwards declares nothing more. Moving the other way (section 15(6)) takes back, in the same fields the other way round, the VAT the invoices and bills still unpaid had declared, and their payments declare it again. Either way the debtors and creditors you brought across when you started on Ledgr are counted too, at the VAT stated on them. The support pack lists the debtors and creditors behind both fields.

VAT with no invoice behind it

The return also declares the VAT your books hold without a document of its own, so it always ties to your VAT Output and VAT Input accounts:

• A bank line you code with VAT — money in is a standard-rated sale (fields 1 and 4), money out is input tax (field 15).
• Import VAT on a customs docket — the VAT you paid customs on imported goods is claimed in field 15A. The support pack lists each docket by its reference.
• The domestic reverse charge — on a purchase of valuable metal the reverse charge applies to, you declare the output tax and claim it back as input, so both appear.

Which box the domestic reverse charge goes in is yours to choose. Ledgr works out the domestic reverse charge on valuable metal — what you sold under it, and the output tax you declare on what you bought — and shows each on its own line of the VAT201, without a box number. It does not put them in a numbered field for you, because SARS's guide to the VAT201 does not say which field takes them. Copy each figure into the field your eFiling return shows for the domestic reverse charge, or ask your tax practitioner.

Bad debts and change in use

Some VAT adjustments have no invoice or bill of their own. Each is recorded with its reason and the document behind it, because SARS can ask for both, and each posts its own journal so the return still ties to your VAT accounts. The VAT tab lists the period's adjustments under VAT adjustments.

• A bad debt written off. Open the invoice and choose Write off as bad debt. The VAT in the amount, at the invoice's own tax fraction, is claimed back in field 17, in full; the amount leaves the customer's balance and aged debtors. On the payments basis (a sale under R100 000) there is no VAT to claim back, because the tax on an unpaid invoice was never declared: the debt is still written off, nothing goes in field 17, and the tax the invoice held is released from VAT Output, so the loss in Bad Debts is the amount before VAT. An invoice brought across from your old system releases its stated VAT the same way, which your opening trial balance (or the move's return) holds in VAT Output. It is the basis on the day you write the debt off that counts: after a move to the invoice basis the move's return declared the VAT, so it is claimed back; after a move to the payments basis the move took it back, so it is not. The same goes for a supplier unpaid after twelve months (section 22(3)), and for a bill issued on the payments basis the twelve months run from the move that claimed its VAT. Do not raise a credit note for a debt the customer simply has not paid: it reverses the sale.
• A bad debt recovered. On the same invoice choose Record a recovery. The VAT in what you recovered is declared again in field 12, and the amount is owing on the invoice again, so record the customer's payment against it as usual. An invoice with a write-off on it cannot be voided or changed until it is recovered.
• A change in use. On the VAT tab, choose Record a change in use. Goods or services bought for your taxable supplies and now used for something else are declared at their open-market value in field 10, with the tax fraction of it in field 11; goods bought for another use and now used for your taxable supplies claim the tax fraction of their value in field 16.
• Fringe benefits. A benefit you give an employee is a supply you make, and you owe output tax on it whether or not the employee pays you anything (VAT Act section 18(3)). Ledgr works it out from the month's approved payslips: a company car at 0.3% a month of its determined value excluding VAT, or 0.6% for a vehicle you claimed the VAT on (a bakkie), less R85 when the employee pays all its repairs and maintenance (tick both on the benefit; Government Notice 2835), other benefits at their cash equivalent; a low-interest loan, housing, medical costs and meals carry none. It is declared once for each month, in field 12, through the API's VAT adjustments (kind: fringe_benefit_output, with the month's last day as the date).

Some purchases never claim their VAT, whatever their supplier's tax invoice says (section 17(2)): entertainment, a motor car, and membership of a sporting, social or recreational club (code it to the Club membership category). The VAT stays part of what they cost.

Not registered yet? When your business is not a VAT vendor, the VAT tab says no VAT201 is due and where your taxable supplies of the last 12 months stand: registration is compulsory once they pass R2.3 million (section 23(1)), and you may register voluntarily once they pass R120 000 (section 23(3)(b)), both from 1 April 2026.

Cancelling your VAT registration: the final return

When SARS cancels your registration it tells you the last day of your final tax period (VAT Act section 24). Up to that day you charge and claim VAT as usual; after it you charge none, claim none, your documents stop printing your VAT number, and Ledgr asks for no further VAT201. Record it on the SARS centre's VAT tab, under Cancel the VAT registration: type that day, read what the final return carries (nothing is posted yet), give a lower market value for any item worth less than it cost, say why, and confirm. The app stops previewing VAT on documents dated after the day, and no copy of them — the PDF you download, the one you email, the customer's portal page — shows your VAT number. Over the API it is GET (the draft) and POST /api/sars/vat-deregistration.

• What you still hold is taxed once more. The goods and capital assets your business still owns on that day are treated as sold to yourself just before it (section 8(2)). Ledgr lists them from your books: the stock in your stock layers and the fixed assets on your register that are still held. Each is valued at the lower of what it cost you, including the VAT, and its open market value (section 10(5)); give the market value of any item worth less than it cost. The stock's tax goes in fields 1 and 4 of the final return and the assets' in fields 1A and 4A. An asset whose VAT you could never claim, such as a motor car, is left out.
• Suppliers you have not paid. The VAT you claimed on a bill that is still unpaid is paid back in the final return (section 22(3)), not only the bills older than twelve months. If you pay the bill later, record the payment as usual.
• Afterwards. File the final return by its usual date and settle what you owe: SARS cannot finish cancelling a registration while returns or payments are outstanding. Keep your records for five years from the final return (Tax Administration Act section 29).

Which box each line goes in: the VAT type

The rate alone cannot say which VAT201 box a line belongs in — an exempt residential rental and a zero-rated export are both 0%. So every invoice, bill and expense line has a VAT type beside its rate. Leave it on Automatic and Ledgr reads the rate as it always has: VAT charged is standard-rated (field 1 or 15), 0% is zero-rated (field 2). Choose a type when that reading is wrong:

Exported goods and services are different lines. Goods you ship out of South Africa are zero-rated exported goods: field 2A, and you need the customs and transport proof in time, or the VAT falls due (see below). A service to a client who is not resident in South Africa and is outside the country when you do the work — consulting, design or software for an overseas company — is a zero-rated service: field 2, with no export deadline, because nothing is shipped. Keep proof that the client is not resident, and that the service had nothing to do with land or goods in South Africa. Invoices you have already issued keep the type they were issued with.

For a guest who stays longer than 28 days without a break, bill the first 28 days as commercial accommodation and the rest as accommodation after day 28: the VAT Act values those later days at 60% of the all-inclusive charge, so they carry 9% rather than 15%. Domestic goods or services you charge for separately (meals, laundry) are standard rate. A hotel bill you pay is a purchase at the standard rate.

• Set it once on the product. A product's default VAT type is used on every line that sells or buys it, unless the line says otherwise. A purchase posted to a fixed-asset or intangible account is treated as capital (field 14) automatically. A purchase line you type as capital must be coded to a fixed-asset or intangible account — otherwise the cost would be expensed while its VAT is claimed as a capital acquisition — so it is refused until you choose the account.
• A type that contradicts the rate is refused — an exempt line charged at 15% cannot be saved. Change the rate or the type.
• Exports need their evidence. Put the customs or shipping reference in Export evidence reference on the invoice. An export without one is still in field 2A, and the return warns that SARS can disallow the zero rate without it. The goods must leave within 90 days of the invoice (or of the first payment, if that came earlier) and you have 90 days more to hold the proof (SARS Interpretation Note 30). With none by then, the VAT on the invoiced amount is output tax in field 12 of the return for the period those days end in; the export itself stays in field 2A. Record the reference when the proof arrives and the same tax comes back out in field 18 of the period you record it in.
• A zero-rated service needs proof of non-residence. A service to a customer who is not resident in South Africa and is outside it when the service is rendered (section 11(2)(l)) is zero-rated only with documentary proof of that (section 11(3)), such as the customer's foreign company registration, passport or address document. Put its reference in Non-resident proof reference on the invoice. An invoice issued without it is not refused — the proof may follow — but the invoice warns you when it is issued and the VAT201 warns you again before you file. No export proof period applies to a service, so nothing moves to field 12.
• Services typed as exports before the service type existed. An issued invoice typed as exported goods with no customs or export reference, in a period you have not filed, is listed under Past VAT to review on the VAT tab. If it was a service, press It is a service (zero-rated, field 2): its lines move from field 2A to field 2 and leave the export proof period, and so do the export lines of its credit and debit notes in periods you have not filed. Undo puts them back. An invoice or note in a filed period is never changed — that return stands, and a correction goes to SARS.
• Imported goods and the customs VAT. The VAT SARS Customs charged on goods you imported is claimed on the customs release (bill of entry), not on the clearing agent's invoice. Put it on the agent's supplier bill as its own line, typed Imported capital goods (customs VAT) for machinery and equipment or Imported goods (customs VAT) for anything else, with the VAT amount as the line amount and no VAT rate, and the bill of entry's number — the MRN on the customs release — in the line's Bill of entry field. Without it the line is not saved: the VAT is input tax only while you hold the bill of entry (section 16(2)(d)). Capital goods are declared in field 14A and other goods in field 15A, and the support pack prints each line's bill of entry beside them. SARS wants your Customs client number beside exports and imports: record it under Settings → Company.
• Second-hand goods from a non-vendor. Used goods bought from a person who is not a VAT vendor carry no VAT, but you may claim notional input tax on them: the tax fraction (15/115) of what you pay, in the period you pay it, whichever accounting basis you use — but never on more than the goods' open market value. Record the purchase as a supplier bill from the seller, with the line typed Second-hand goods from a non-vendor (notional input tax), no VAT rate, and the goods' open market value (what they would fetch between strangers; for a fair price, the price): R600 paid for a fridge worth R460 claims R60.00, not R78.26. In place of a tax invoice the law asks you to keep the seller's name, identity or registration number and address (section 20(8)), so the seller's contact must carry them; a seller with a VAT number is a vendor and is refused. Each payment then claims its share in field 15: R600 paid R400 now and R200 next month claims R52.17, then R26.09. The claim stands on the seller's signed declaration (SARS form VAT264): attach it to the bill under Seller's declaration, with the day it was signed. Until it is there nothing is claimed, and a share paid before it was signed is claimed in the period it was signed. A line for a stocked product or against an order is refused: code the goods to an expense or asset account, and if you will sell them from stock, receive them with a stock adjustment at the cost less the notional input tax.
• Imported services — software, hosting or consulting bought from a foreign supplier who charged no VAT — are taxed by you only to the extent you do not use them for making taxable supplies (section 7(1)(c)). On the bill line, Used for says which: Wholly for taxable supplies owes nothing, so fields 12 and 15 stay empty; Wholly for exempt supplies owes the VAT in full; and Mixed use owes the share your Taxable use for input VAT ratio does not put to taxable use (nothing when no ratio is recorded). Ledgr calculates the VAT at the rate on the bill's date, declares what is owed in field 12, and posts it to VAT Output against Non-claimable VAT. It is a cost, never input tax, so it is not claimed in field 15, and the return still ties to your ledger.
• If you make exempt as well as taxable supplies, set Taxable use for input VAT in Settings → Tax & VAT. Fields 14 and 15 then claim that percentage of the input VAT on your mixed purchases, and the return says it was apportioned. Leave it blank if every purchase is for taxable supplies. A ratio of 95% or more claims all of it (section 17(1) proviso (i)). If your exempt supplies (field 3) make your taxable share fall below 95% and no ratio is recorded, the return warns that you are claiming every rand.
• A purchase made wholly for one use is not apportioned. On an expense or a bill line with VAT, Used for says Wholly for taxable supplies (claimed in full whatever your ratio) or Wholly for exempt supplies (not claimed, and moved to Non-claimable VAT when you file). Leave it on Mixed use and your ratio applies, as it always did.

The diesel refund is not claimed. A business in farming, forestry, mining or fishing that SARS has registered for the diesel refund claims it through the VAT201, under section 75(1A) of the Customs and Excise Act and Part 3 of its Schedule 6. The claim rests on logbooks of the diesel bought and how each litre was used, which Ledgr does not keep, so Ledgr's VAT201 does not fill in the diesel refund fields. If you are registered for it, work out the claim from your logbooks and complete those fields on eFiling.

Selling fixed property: when the VAT falls due, at which rate, and VAT or transfer duty. Record a sale of land or buildings as a property sale (/api/property-sales): the written agreement (its date and the price, including VAT), what the property was held as — a developer's stock, with the account its cost is in, or a fixed asset on your register — then each payment and, last, the registration of transfer in the Deeds Office.

• When. The supply takes place on the earlier of registration and the first payment you can use (VAT Act section 9(3)(d)). A deposit your conveyancer or estate agent holds in trust is not yet a payment to you; it counts when it is paid over on registration.
• As you are paid. On a property sale you declare output tax only as the price is received, whatever your accounting basis (VAT404 4.5.2): each payment's VAT is in the return of the period it reached you, and what is paid over on registration in that period's return.
• One rate. The whole sale carries the rate on its time of supply, even when the balance is paid after a rate change. Two exceptions in section 67A: a sale paid between the announcement of an increase and the day it takes effect, and registered more than 21 days after that day, takes the new rate (67A(2)); a home, or land for one, sold under a written agreement signed before an increase at a price fixed in it keeps the rate on the day it was signed (67A(4)) — say so when you record the agreement.
• VAT or transfer duty. Your sale of property as a VAT vendor carries VAT and the buyer pays no transfer duty (Transfer Duty Act section 9(15)); if you are not a vendor on the agreement's date there is no VAT and the buyer pays transfer duty. Ledgr decides this from your registration; it is not a choice.
• A going concern. Selling a business with its property as a going concern is zero-rated only when all five conditions of section 11(1)(e) hold: both of you are vendors, you agreed in writing that it is a going concern and that the price includes VAT at 0%, it is earning income on the day of transfer, and the assets needed to run it go with it. A building on its own is never a going concern. The price goes in field 2.
• In your books. Payments before transfer are held as income received in advance. On registration the price less its VAT is your revenue: a developer's sale against its cost of sale, a fixed asset's as a profit or loss on disposal as it leaves the register. A developer's property goes in fields 1 and 4 of the return; a fixed asset in 1A and 4A.

On registration the conveyancer pays you the rest of the price, so Ledgr records the transfer once the whole price is accounted for. Any other sale takes the rate of the days it was delivered or performed, and a lay-by the rate of the day it was agreed (section 67A(1), (2) and (5)).

Selling on an instalment credit agreement. Goods sold on an instalment agreement (the customer takes them now, pays over months with interest, and ownership passes on the last payment) are supplied when they are delivered, or when the first payment is received if that is earlier, for their cash value: the price including VAT, without the finance charges (VAT Act sections 9(3)(c) and 10(6); VAT 404 guide 4.5.1 and 5.3.3). The whole VAT on that cash value is due in that period on either accounting basis. To sell this way, issue the tax invoice for the cash price on the day of delivery, open it under Sales and choose Sell on instalment credit: give the deposit, the number of monthly instalments, the interest rate a year, the Reserve Bank's repo rate on the day, and any initiation fee or monthly service fee. Quote shows the customer the pre-agreement particulars the National Credit Act asks for (section 92): the instalment, the schedule, the cost of credit (interest and fees) and the total payable. Conclude at delivery settles the invoice — the deposit into the bank account you choose, the rest into Instalment Credit Receivable (1328) — so its VAT is declared in that period whichever basis you are on.

The National Credit Act's limits. Ledgr refuses an interest rate above the maximum for the credit type and says what it is: for an instalment agreement, which is secured by the goods, the repo rate plus 17% a year ("other credit agreements"; for a developmental credit agreement for a small business, the repo rate plus 27%) — National Credit Regulations, regulation 42(1) Table A. An initiation fee may not be more than R165 plus 10% of the amount above R1 000, never more than R1 050 (regulation 42(2) Table B), nor more than 15% of the amount financed (regulation 43(3)); a service fee may not be more than R60 a month (regulation 44). Ledgr applies these to every agreement, including one with a company large enough to be outside the Act.

Finance charges, instalments and the statement. Each month's finance charge is the balance still owed times the monthly rate (a year's rate divided by twelve) — the effective interest method — and is issued on its due date on its own document. Interest on credit is an exempt financial service (VAT Act sections 2(1)(f) and 12(a)), so it is declared in VAT201 field 3, month by month; a service or initiation fee carries VAT at the standard rate. The month end earns every charge that fell due in the month, whether or not an instalment was recorded, so the month's income and its return carry it. A charge that fell due in a month you have since locked (or, for a service fee, in a VAT period already filed) is booked on the first open day after it, and its document says which month earned it: the locked month stays as you signed it off. Record instalment earns any charge still to come up to its date and then pays interest first, then fees, then the amount financed (National Credit Act section 126(3)); paying early saves the interest not yet charged. The card shows the statement of account: every charge and instalment with the balance after it. Instalment Credit Receivable on the ledger health page ties to the amount financed still owed on every agreement.

Bad debts and repossession. Write off treats what is still owed as irrecoverable: the VAT inside the cash value not recovered is claimed back in field 17 (VAT Act section 22(1)), on either accounting basis. Repossess is for goods taken back or surrendered: the customer is treated as supplying them back to you for the cash value not yet recovered (sections 8(10) and 10(16)), and its VAT fraction is claimed as input tax in field 15 (VAT 404 guide 13.7.2). Describe the goods and the day in the reason (section 20(8A) asks for the date, the customer, the goods and the amount), then count the goods back into stock with a stock adjustment at their value. A repossessed agreement cannot also be written off as a bad debt (VAT 404 guide 9.2). Finance charges already charged stay owed on their own documents.

SARS e-invoicing. Since 1 April 2026 the VAT Act defines an e-invoice and e-reporting (the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Act 4 of 2026), and the Minister may set up a voluntary e-reporting system by regulation; nothing makes e-invoicing compulsory yet. Ledgr does not send your invoices to SARS and does not join that system: your tax invoices are the documents Ledgr issues, and the VAT201 is prepared from your books as described above.

Selling a business as a going concern is not zero-rated by Ledgr. A vendor that sells its business, or a part of it that can run on its own, to another vendor may charge VAT at 0% under section 11(1)(e) of the VAT Act, but only when the seller and the buyer agree in writing that it is sold as a going concern, that the business is running on the day it changes hands, that the assets it needs to run go with it, and that the price includes VAT at 0%. Ledgr has no going-concern sale and does not check those conditions. If you sell your business this way, keep the written agreement, issue the invoice with the zero-rated VAT type (field 2) on your accountant's advice, and keep the agreement with your VAT records: without it, SARS charges VAT at the standard rate on the whole price.

VAT on imported services when you are not a vendor is not worked out. A business that is not registered for VAT, or a vendor that uses a service bought from abroad for something other than its taxable supplies (exempt supplies, or private use), owes VAT on that imported service (sections 7(1)(c) and 14 of the VAT Act). A vendor declares its part in field 12 of the VAT201, as the table above says; anyone else declares and pays it on SARS's VAT215 within 30 days of the invoice or the payment, whichever is first (section 14(1)(b) and (5)). Ledgr does not prepare the VAT215 or work out that VAT for a business that is not a vendor: record the payment by hand and file the VAT215 at a SARS branch or on eFiling.

EMP201

Built from approved payroll runs: PAYE, UIF and SDL for the month with the per-employee breakdown behind each figure. If a total looks low, check that every payroll run for the month is approved rather than still in draft — see the payroll guide.

The Employment Tax Incentive appears as the four boxes the EMP201 has, in its order: ETI brought forward, ETI calculated, ETI utilised and ETI carried forward (brought forward plus calculated, less utilised). A nil box is shown as nil, so you copy each one into eFiling as it stands.

EMP501 reconciliation

Filed twice a year through e@syFile: the interim covers 1 March to 31 August and is due by 31 October, the annual covers the full year to end February and is due by 31 May. They are two separate submissions with two different certificate sets behind them, so Ledgr asks which one you are preparing rather than inferring it from a date range.

A reconciliation is three totals that have to agree:

1. What you declared

   PAYE, SDL and UIF from the EMP201s for every month in the window.

2. What the certificates say

   The same three from the IRP5 and IT3(a) certificates for the same employees — source code 4149.

3. What you paid SARS

   This is the one leg Ledgr cannot see: nothing in the product records "we paid SARS R84 000 on 5 April". It is reported as not captured rather than assumed to equal the declaration, because assuming it is exactly what makes a reconciliation balance on paper and then fail at SARS. Fill it in from your bank statement.

Ledgr computes the difference per component and per month before you submit, which is the whole point of doing it here rather than by hand — SARS raises a query on any difference, and a letter three months later is a far more expensive way to find out. Work down the list, fix the month it names, and only then generate the certificate import.

IRP5 and IT3(a) certificates

This is the one that saves real time. Ledgr builds the e@syFile Employer import file from your approved payslips, so no certificate is captured by hand. In e@syFile: Utilities → Import Payroll File, pick the downloaded file, then reconcile against the EMP501.

Before it generates anything, the screen reviews every certificate and lists the problems per employee. That order matters: e@syFile rejects an entire import on one bad record and reports it by line number, so a readable fix list up front beats a rejection afterwards. A second download gives the per-employee schedule as a CSV for your own file.

The file already carries everything the payroll runs worked out, so there is nothing to add to it by hand: the employer's retirement and medical contributions (both as the taxable benefit, 3810–3828, and as employer contributions, 4472–4475 inside the 4497 total), the medical scheme fees tax credit (4116), the whole UIF contribution, employee and employer (4141), and the Employment Tax Incentive the runs claimed — the 4118 total and the monthly 7002–7008 working behind it. Do not capture any of those again in e@syFile: an import plus a hand-typed figure is the same contribution or the same ETI claimed twice, and a disallowed ETI claim is repaid with a penalty.

What the file cannot know is marked on the review screen, per employee, and those are the warnings to read before you import:

• A reconstructed medical credit. Payslips from before Ledgr stored the credit month by month have it rebuilt from the employee's dependants as they stand today. If anybody joined or left the scheme during the year, correct 4116 in e@syFile rather than adding to it.
• Figures taken on from a previous payroll. Earnings, tax and contributions entered at take-on are the employer's own figures, reported as given. The take-on has no per-fund split, so its retirement contributions are reported as pension (4001 and 4472); if they were provident or retirement-annuity contributions, move them to the right code in e@syFile.
• ETI claimed before you moved to Ledgr. The ETI in the file is what Ledgr's own runs claimed. Months claimed on your previous payroll's EMP201s are not in it — add those months, and only those, in e@syFile.

The file has not yet been tried in e@syFile itself. Ledgr builds it to SARS's published specification for the e@syFile Employer import and checks every record against that specification before you download it, but the file has not yet been imported into e@syFile by us. e@syFile names a record it rejects by its line number: send us that line and the message, and we will tell you what to correct.

Why a return will not download — and the fix for each

Every generator validates before it produces a file. If something blocks the return you get the reasons on screen and no download at all, on purpose: a wrong file that SARS accepts is far more expensive to unpick than one you could not produce. All of these name the figure or the record involved, so you can go straight to it.

The warnings, and which ones actually matter

A warning appears beside the download rather than instead of it, because each one has a legitimate explanation as well as a suspicious one — and a product that refused to file for any of these would be wrong more often than right. Read them before you submit, not after an assessment.

ITR14 and IRP6

ITR14 is the company income tax return for the year of assessment; IRP6 is the provisional return: the first and second period, and the voluntary third. Ledgr produces an estimate for both from the same trial balance the income statement uses, and a trial-balance CSV as the supporting schedule SARS asks for alongside the return. Treat the figures as a working number to review with your accountant, not a final computation — permanent and temporary differences and the allowances Ledgr does not compute need judgement it does not make for you.

The IRP6 does not start from the profit in your books: its taxable income actually earned to date is the ITR14's own computation for the months so far (wear-and-tear in place of depreciation, and the add-backs below), carried to twelve months, less any assessed loss brought forward, which section 20 sets off the year's estimate and the card says so. So the estimate and the return agree, and the second period's under-estimation test is judged on taxable income.

How the ITR14's tax computation is built

The computation starts from your own books, and every line is on the Income Tax tab beside the return:

1. Net profit before tax — the figure the income statement prints for the same year, before any tax charge already posted. The return also sets its declared turnover, cost of sales and net profit beside the income statement's and names any difference, as the IT14SD does.
2. Add back depreciation — the depreciation posted to the ledger for the year. It is not deductible for tax; the wear-and-tear allowance replaces it.
3. Less wear-and-tear (section 11(e)) — from the fixed-asset register, straight line on cost over SARS' write-off period for each class: computers — personal over 3 years; computer software (personal computers) over 2 years; office equipment — mechanical over 5 years; furniture and fittings over 6 years; passenger cars over 5 years; machinery — lathes, milling and grinding machines over 6 years. In the year an asset is bought or disposed of the allowance is apportioned by the months it was in use, a part month counting as a month, and it never goes below a nil tax value. A computer costing R30 000 bought on 1 September in a year ending February is allowed R5 000 in that year. Leasehold improvements, land and buildings get no wear-and-tear, and the return names each one; the depreciation charged on a building is added back with the rest. An asset is claimed under one allowance: choose section 12B, 12C, 12E or 13 on the asset in the register (Fixed assets) and the return deducts that allowance in its own line, Less: capital allowances, sections 12B, 12C, 12E and 13, and no wear-and-tear beside it. The recoupment on an asset you sold is worked out from the same tax value.
4. Add back the doubtful-debt provision, less the section 11(j) allowance — the books charge the provision for doubtful debts to Bad Debts (account 1325, raised through 6300), but the Income Tax Act allows only a share of the debt by how long it has been in arrears: 40% of the trade debts 120 days or more past their due date and 25% of those 60 days or more. The return adds back the year's increase in the provision (a decrease is taken out), deducts the allowance on the debtors' ageing at the year end, and adds back last year end's allowance, which section 11(j) makes income in the next year. The ageing is the one on Reports → Aged Debtors at the year end, ex VAT, because the VAT in an invoice was never your income. With R100 000 at 120 days or more, R80 000 at 60 days or more and a provision of R59 450 in the books, the return adds back R59 450 and deducts R60 000. Ledgr applies section 11(j)(ii), for a business that does not use IFRS 9 for its debtors, and holds no security against a debt. If you apply IFRS 9, the allowance is 40% / 25% of your loss allowance (section 11(j)(i)); and SARS can direct a higher percentage, up to 85%, on application. Adjust the return by hand for either — the return says so. Ledgr does not work out the IFRS 9 route itself: your books follow section 11 of IFRS for SMEs, which keeps no IFRS 9 loss allowance for it to start from.
5. Disposals — for each asset on the fixed-asset register that you sold or scrapped in the year, the return takes out the profit or loss the books show and puts in the recoupment of allowances (section 8(4)(a)) or the scrapping allowance (section 11(o)), worked out from the tax value on the day against what it fetched, ex VAT. When some of a hire item's units are sold or lost, that share is measured the same way, on its share of the item's cost and tax value. A profit or loss posted any other way — a journal, or units of a hire item sold before 8 November 2026 — has no tax value in Ledgr to be replaced with, so the return leaves it in at the books' figure on its own line, "books' result on disposals not on the register", and says how much. Replace that line by hand with the recoupment or scrapping allowance on those disposals.
6. Add-backs you mark on the accounts — what the books charged and the Act does not allow yet, or at all, is taken from the Income tax treatment on each account (Reports → Chart of accounts → edit an expense or liability account), not typed into the return. An expense marked Not deductible (fines and penalties, section 23(o)) is added back in full. A Donations expense is deductible only against a section 18A receipt (section 18A(2)): enter the value of the receipts you hold for the year under SARS → Income Tax, beside the reconciliation, and the part no receipt supports is added back (and not carried forward). Until you do, no donation is deducted. The receipted part is deductible to a tenth of taxable income and the rest is added back and carried to next year, where it is deducted within that year's limit. For a year ending on or after 1 April 2026 the tenth is of taxable income before an assessed loss is set off; for an earlier year it is of what the assessed loss leaves. A liability marked Deductible when paid — a warranty or long-service provision, an accrued bonus (sections 23(e), 11(a) and 7B) — has the year's increase added back, and a decrease (paid, or released) deducted; any provision account is taken so until you say No adjustment. Income received in advance (deferred revenue, 2150) is gross income when it is received, so its increase is added and a decrease deducted. The section 24C allowance for the expenditure you will incur under a contract is deducted when you record the contract under Section 24C claims (Income tab): its reference, the date it was concluded, the income received in advance under it and the expenditure still to come. The allowance is the lesser of the two amounts, limited to the income received in advance the books hold, and it is added back the year after (section 24C(3)). Payments held in account 1330 for a later period go on the Prepaid expenses list with the first and last day of the service and the expense account it is for; each month end releases the month's share from 1330 to that account (see prepayments). Section 23H does not defer one that is supplied within six months after the year end or that is R100 000 or less, so the return deducts its unexpired part when paid and adds it back the year after; a longer or larger prepayment is deducted as the service is supplied, as in the books. Deferred tax reads the same two lists.
7. Less the assessed loss brought forward (section 20) — enter the balance on your last SARS assessment under the ITR14. Until you do, Ledgr carries the loss from its own computation of last year, and says so. For years of assessment ending on or after 31 March 2023 a company may set off no more than the greater of R1 000 000 and 80% of its taxable income before the set-off; the rest carries forward. With R5 000 000 brought forward against R2 000 000 of taxable income, R1 600 000 is set off and R3 400 000 carries forward. A trust's, a sole proprietor's and a partner's assessed loss is on their own assessment, so it is not set off here.
8. Taxable income, and the normal tax on it at the company rate, or on the small business corporation table once the company qualifies.
9. Less provisional tax paid — the money that left your bank for SARS, not the amount an IRP6 asked for. Code each payment to SARS on the bank screen to Income Tax Payable (2170). A payment dated inside the year counts towards that year; one made after the year end counts only as the voluntary top-up, and only once you have noted that top-up as filed, up to the amount it asked for. An IRP6 you have filed and not paid is therefore still owing on the ITR14. Ledgr cannot tell a payment of last year's assessment from a provisional payment when both are coded to the same account, so check the figure against your SARS statement of account.

Capital gains tax is not worked out. When an asset on the fixed-asset register is sold for more than it cost, the disposal line puts in the recoupment and the return names the amount above cost as a capital gain, but Ledgr does not compute the gain under the Eighth Schedule (the base cost, the rules for an asset held before 1 October 2001, the inclusion rate and any exclusion) and does not add it to taxable income. The same goes for an asset that is not on the register, such as shares or a property held as an investment. You or your tax practitioner work out the taxable capital gain and declare it on the return.

Section 24I is not applied. The return takes the exchange gains and losses your books record, both those realised when a foreign invoice or bill is paid and those from revaluing what is still open at the closing rate, at the books' figure. The rules of section 24I that differ from the books are not applied: the deferral of exchange differences on certain loans between connected persons (section 24I(10A)), forward exchange contracts and foreign currency options, and the translation of a foreign branch. If any of those apply to you, adjust the return by hand.

Section 7C is not worked out. When a person connected to a trust lends it money at no interest or at less than the official rate, the interest forgone each year is treated as a donation by the lender, and donations tax is due on it (section 7C). Ledgr records the loan in the trust's books but does not work out the interest forgone or the donations tax: the tax is the lender's, declared on the lender's own donations tax return (IT144), not the trust's.

Section 7 attribution is not worked out. Income that flows from a donation, settlement or other disposition can be taxed in the donor's hands rather than the trust's or a beneficiary's (Income Tax Act section 7): a parent's gift that earns income for a minor child (section 7(3)), a gift to a spouse (section 7(2)), income a trust holds back until an event, which is the common family-trust case (section 7(5)), a right to income the donor can revoke (section 7(6)), and a non-resident beneficiary's share of a resident's gift (section 7(8)). Ledgr does not work this out: the trust's books do not say whose gift funded what, so the ITR12T taxes all of the income the trust keeps, and says so on the return. Your tax practitioner identifies any attributed income and takes it out of the trust's taxable income by hand; the donor declares it on their own ITR12.

Donations tax is not worked out. A South African resident company or trust that gives something away, or sells it for less than it is worth, pays donations tax on it (sections 54 to 64 of the Income Tax Act): 20% of the value, and 25% of the part of a donor's donations above R30 million in total since 1 March 2018 (section 64), declared on the IT144 and paid by the end of the month after the month the donation takes effect (section 60). Some donations are exempt (section 56), among them a donation to a public benefit organisation SARS has approved under section 30, a donation between spouses, a donation to a company in the same group, and, for an individual, the first R100 000 a year; a company that is not a public company has R10 000 of casual gifts a year exempt. Ledgr does not work out donations tax, does not warn on a gift in your books and does not prepare the IT144: a donation you record is an expense in your books and nothing more. Work out the tax with your accountant and file the IT144 on eFiling.

A transfer of an asset between companies in the same group is not treated as a roll-over. When one company in a group (a parent holding at least 70% of the equity shares of the other, directly or through the group, section 41) transfers an asset to another, section 45 of the Income Tax Act lets the transfer go through without tax: the seller makes no capital gain and no recoupment, and the buyer takes over the seller's tax cost and dates, unless both elect that it does not apply. If the buyer leaves the group within six years, the gain is taxed then (the de-grouping charge). Ledgr does not know a sale is one of these: it treats the transfer as an ordinary disposal, so the seller's ITR14 shows the capital gain or the recoupment on it and the buyer's wear-and-tear starts again. If a section 45 transfer applies, adjust both companies' returns by hand on your accountant's advice.

Income tax in your books

The tax on the year's profit is a debt to SARS, and what you paid on account settles it: it is not an expense (IFRS for SMEs section 29). A payment to SARS goes to Income Tax Payable (2170), and the bank screen refuses to code a line to Income Tax Expense (6910), which holds the year's charge. Under the ITR14's estimate the card Income tax in the books shows the tax the return states, what you paid, what the books already charge, and what is still owed. Press Post the year's income tax (it needs approval on Reports) to book the difference, dated the year end: debit Income Tax Expense, credit Income Tax Payable. Tax of R270 000 with R200 000 paid then shows an expense of R270 000 and R70 000 owed to SARS on the balance sheet. Post it again after the return changes and only the change is booked. A payment an older book left in the expense account is netted, so the expense is still the tax. A sole proprietor's or a partnership's tax is the owner's or the partners' own, so nothing is booked in the business.

The return follows the business type under Settings → Company. A private company, a close corporation and a non-profit company get the ITR14 at the company rate. A trust gets the ITR12T at the trust rate on what the trust keeps: income vested in a beneficiary is taxed in the beneficiary's hands (section 25B), so record each vesting as a journal debiting 3700 Distributions Vested in Beneficiaries (crediting what the trust now owes the beneficiary) and the return deducts it. The trust's IRP6 estimate leaves it out too: what was vested by the period end is projected to the year like the income, so a trust that vests only at its year end should enter its own estimate for the first period. A special trust (a trust for a disabled person, or one created by a will for the deceased's minor children) is marked under Settings → Company and is taxed on the individual tables instead of the flat rate. A sole proprietor's business has no return of its own, so Ledgr prepares an ITR12 business income schedule — turnover, cost of sales and each expense account — for the owner's own ITR12, and estimates the owner's provisional tax on the individual tables less the primary rebate. A non-profit company or a trust that SARS has approved as a public benefit organisation can say so under Settings → Company; its return is then the ITR12EI, with the section 10(1)(cN) exemption fields, and the tax it shows is before that exemption.

Which twelve months the return covers. A company's ITR14 is for its own financial year. A trust's ITR12T, a sole proprietor's ITR12 schedule and a partnership's partner schedules are for the year of assessment, 1 March to the end of February, whatever month your books end (Income Tax Act section 66(13)(a)), so the year picker on the Income Tax tab, the deadline card and the IRP6 all name years to February. Ledgr builds that return from what your ledger holds between those two dates. Your books' own year, the annual financial statements and deferred tax, is not affected. With books to June, the return for the year to February 2026 covers 1 March 2025 to 28 February 2026, and does not match the statements for the year to June. SARS may accept accounts to another date only where it has agreed to that with you (section 66(13A)). Ledgr does not prepare a return on that basis.

Dividends received are exempt. A dividend from a South African company is exempt from income tax (Income Tax Act section 10(1)(k)(i)): the company paying it withholds dividends tax instead. A foreign dividend is exempt in full where you hold 10% or more of the company's equity shares and voting rights (section 10B(2)(a)), and otherwise in part (section 10B(3)): 7/27 of it for a company, 25/45 for a trust or an individual, so what is left is taxed at the same 20% either way. The return takes them out of taxable income on the line Less: exempt dividends, read from how each income account is marked under Accounting → Chart of accounts → Income tax treatment: Local dividends, Foreign dividends or Foreign dividends, 10% or more of the shares held. An income account whose name contains "dividend" is taken as local dividends until you say otherwise (as foreign dividends where its name also says "foreign"). A dividend from a REIT, or from a company a REIT controls, is not exempt: mark its account No adjustment. Expenditure incurred to earn exempt income is not deductible (section 23(f)), such as interest on a loan taken to buy the shares; Ledgr cannot tell it from your other costs, so the return warns you, and you mark its account Not deductible. The annual financial statements' tax reconciliation shows the same exempt dividends on a line of their own, and the IRP6 estimate leaves them out too.

What Ledgr does not prepare on the owner's ITR12. The ITR12 is the owner's personal return, not the business's. Ledgr prepares its business income schedule (local business, trade and professional income) and nothing else on it: a salary and its IRP5, interest, dividends, rental income, capital gains, retirement fund and medical scheme contributions, the medical tax credits and the secondary and tertiary rebates for an owner aged 65 or 75 are not in the business's books, so you or your tax practitioner add them on eFiling. For the same reason the owner's provisional tax estimate is on the business income alone, less the primary rebate only.

The owner's schedule is trade income only. Its turnover is your trade income. Interest your business account earned is not business income on the ITR12: it goes under local interest, where the section 10(1)(i) exemption applies, so the schedule lists it after the net profit with that note. So are the Employment Tax Incentive (not income), a profit on selling an asset (a recoupment under section 8(4)(a), in the tax computation, or a capital gain) and dividends received (declared as dividends). An exchange gain is income of the business (section 24I) but not turnover, so it has its own line inside the net profit. Depreciation is replaced by the wear-and-tear allowance the Act gives (section 11(e)), from the fixed-asset register, so the net profit is the figure you declare. The tax computation below the schedule still estimates the tax on the books' whole result.

Partnerships

A partnership is not a taxpayer: it files no income tax return of its own and pays no provisional tax. Each partner declares their share of the profit on their own ITR12, as local business, trade and professional income, and pays their own provisional tax on it. Choose Partnership as the business type under Settings → Company, then list the partners and each one's share of the profit under Partners; the shares must add up to exactly 100%.

Shares are dated. When they change, give the date the new shares start: the earlier shares stay on record for the years they applied to, so last year's partner schedules do not change. A year's schedules split its income by the shares in force at the year's end; if the shares changed during the year the return warns you, and you apportion that year's income between the two sets of shares yourself.

The Income Tax tab then shows the partnership's whole business income schedule for reference, one schedule per partner to download, and the partnership's tax computation. The computation is run once, for the partnership, exactly as a company's or a sole proprietor's is: wear-and-tear on the fixed-asset register in place of depreciation, fines and other non-deductible expenditure added back, the Employment Tax Incentive and exempt dividends taken out, provisions deductible only when paid, recoupments added. It ends at the partnership's taxable income, with no tax line, because the partnership owes none. Each line of a partner's schedule is the partnership's figure times their share, rounded to the cent, and the partner with the largest share carries the cents the rounding leaves, so the partners' schedules add up to the partnership's exactly. After the net profit, a partner's schedule carries their share of the tax adjustments and then the taxable income from this business: that last line is the figure the partner declares and is taxed on. An assessed loss is each partner's own, set off on their own return. Interest the partnership receives stays interest. Section 24H(5)(a) treats each partner's share of the partnership's income as their own, so their share of the interest is not business income: the schedule lists it after the net profit, leaves it out of the taxable income from this business, and the partner declares it as local interest on their ITR12, where their own section 10(1)(i) exemption applies. The IRP6 is not offered for a partnership, and no provisional tax deadline appears on its calendar.

If the partnership agreement gives a partner a salary or interest on their capital before the profit is shared, enter the yearly amounts beside that partner. Each partner is taxed on the share the agreement gives them (Income Tax Act section 24H(5)(a)). So the salaries and interest are allocated first, and the shares divide what is left, even when that is a loss. A partner's schedule then carries one more line, for the salaries and interest under the agreement. It adds their own salary and interest and takes away their share of all the partners' salaries and interest. Their share of the tax adjustments is divided the same way, salaries and interest first, so their taxable income from this business is the amount they are taxed on. A partner's salary is a share of the profit, not a wage: it is not an expense of the partnership, and no PAYE or IRP5 applies to it. Record it as a drawing, not on the payroll.

Provisional tax: the basic amount and the under-estimation test

SARS tests the second-period estimate against the taxable income the year actually produces. Where that is R1 million or less, the estimate must reach the lower of 90% of the actual figure and the basic amount — the taxable income on your latest SARS assessment. Above R1 million it must reach 80% of the actual figure, and the basic amount does not help. Short of that minimum, SARS charges a penalty of 20% of the difference between the tax on the minimum and the tax you have actually paid for the year by its end (employees' tax and provisional tax), and only when the estimate is short of the minimum. Ledgr counts the money that left your bank for SARS, coded to Income Tax Payable, and never the tax on the estimate or an IRP6 you only noted as filed; it also says what the penalty falls to once the tax on your estimate is paid too.

Employees' tax is not set off. Paragraph 20 also subtracts the employees' tax deducted from the taxpayer's own remuneration during the year. That tax is on the taxpayer's IRP5, not in the business's books — an owner's salary from another employer, or the PAYE a client withheld from a personal service provider — so Ledgr does not count it, and the penalty it shows is the most it can be. SARS works the penalty out on assessment from everything paid; if employees' tax was withheld from you, the penalty SARS charges is lower by 20% of it.

The first period has a floor of its own: its estimate may not be less than the basic amount unless the circumstances of your case justify a lower one, and SARS may raise it. When you have typed in a basic amount and the first-period estimate is below it, Ledgr still prepares the figure you asked for, but warns by name that you are filing below the floor and must be able to justify it. The increase described next is measured to the date the estimate is made, which for the first period is its own end (31 August for a February year end).

If the assessment the basic amount comes from is for a year that ended more than 18 months before the end of the year you are estimating, SARS increases the basic amount by 8% of it for each year between the two year ends. Ledgr does this when you say which year the assessment was for, and the IRP6 card shows the increased figure it tests against. If you do not say, the return warns that the increase may apply.

The basic amount is on your assessment, not in your books, so you type it in on the IRP6 card under Basic amount (from your latest assessment), once for each year of assessment. You can also type the estimate you will file if it differs from the figure Ledgr prepared; the tax, the amount payable and the test then use your figure. Ledgr runs the test against the year as it projects it and shows the minimum and the estimated penalty beside the prepared figure. For example, with a basic amount of R200 000, a year projected at R150 000 and an estimate of R100 000, the estimate is below the basic amount, so it is tested against 90% of the actual figure: a minimum of R135 000 and an estimated penalty of R1 890 for a company taxed at the company rate. Without a basic amount the test uses 90% of the actual figure alone, and the return says so.

The third period is a voluntary top-up after the year end — six months after it, or seven for a February year end, so 30 September. It is the full year's estimated tax less what you have already paid, and its only purpose is to stop interest running on a shortfall; it does not undo a second-period penalty. Pick the top-up chip once a year has ended, download it and note it as filed like the others. It never appears as a deadline or as overdue, because nothing requires it.

Small business corporations

A company that meets every test in section 12E of the Income Tax Act for the whole year is taxed on the small business corporation table instead of the company rate. For a year ending between 1 April 2026 and 31 March 2027 that is nothing on the first R99 000 of taxable income, 7% up to R365 000, R18 620 plus 21% up to R550 000, and R57 470 plus 27% above that. On R300 000 of taxable income that is R14 070 rather than R81 000.

Ledgr cannot tell from your books whether the company qualifies, so it asks, once for each year: whether all the shareholders were people throughout the year, whether gross income was R20 million or less, whether any shareholder held shares in another company, whether investment and personal-service income was 20% or less of the total, and whether the company is a personal service provider. Until you answer, the ITR14 and IRP6 use the company rate and say so. If you answer yes to the gross income question while the books show more, Ledgr refuses the answer and shows you the figure. For a year whose table Ledgr does not hold, a qualifying company's return will not download until the table is confirmed — it is never taxed on another year's bands.

Turnover tax for a micro business

A micro business with a turnover of R2.3 million or less can register with SARS for turnover tax, which replaces income tax, provisional tax and, unless it chooses to stay registered, VAT. It is charged on turnover, not profit, on a table that starts at nil: for 2026/27 there is no tax on the first R600 000, and a turnover of R1 000 000 owes R4 500 for the year.

A company or close corporation qualifies only when its year of assessment ends on the last day of February (Sixth Schedule, as SARS states in its turnover tax questions). One whose financial year ends in another month is a provisional taxpayer: Ledgr refuses the registration, keeps its IRP6s on the deadline card, and says why. A sole proprietor or partner is assessed March to February whatever month the books end. SARS also tests that every shareholder is a natural person and that professional or investment income is no more than 20% of turnover; Ledgr cannot see those, so SARS decides them when you register.

You apply to SARS on the TT01 before the year of assessment begins — by the end of February for the year starting 1 March — or, for a business that started trading during the year, within two months of starting (Sixth Schedule paragraph 8). Until a year is ticked as registered, the SARS screen says by which date the TT01 for it must reach SARS, or, once that date has passed, the next year you can still apply for. A business leaves voluntarily only from the start of a year, applying before it begins (paragraph 9). A business that has been deregistered, whether it left or SARS removed it, may never register for turnover tax again (paragraph 8(3), since 1 March 2012), so Ledgr refuses to tick a later year as registered and says why; changing the answer for the very year you recorded the deregistration for is a correction and is allowed.

Registration starts on 1 March, the first day of a year of assessment. Once you have registered with SARS, tick Registered for turnover tax on the SARS screen for that year. Ledgr then shows the turnover so far, projects the year from the months already complete, and works out the tax and the two interim payments — half by the last business day of August and the rest by the last business day of February. Both payments and the TT03 annual return (1 July to 31 January after the year ends) go on the deadline card. If the turnover passes R2.3 million Ledgr warns you by name: the business no longer qualifies, must tell SARS within 21 days, and is deregistered from the first day of the next month (paragraph 10). A business that began trading part-way through the year has a proportionately smaller limit (SARS turnover tax FAQ): the limit times the months it traded over twelve, a part month counting whole. Ledgr takes the start from the company's incorporation date when it has one, otherwise from the first receipt in the books, and says in the warning how many months it counted.

Turnover is the money you received, not the invoices you issued: a customer's payment counts in the year it arrives, less refunds you paid on credit notes, plus point-of-sale takings and bank lines you coded straight to a sales account. An invoice issued in one year and paid in the next is the next year's turnover. Credit applied from a credit note or a deposit moves no money, so it is not counted again. If you are also registered for VAT, the VAT in each receipt is left out.

Once the year has ended, Download TT03 on the turnover tax card gives you the return's figures: the year's turnover, the tax on it, the interim payments you made and the balance. The interim payments are the money that left your bank for SARS in that year, coded to Income Tax Payable; marking an interim as filed takes it off the deadline card but does not count as having paid it, so an unpaid interim is still owing on the TT03. When you have paid an interim payment or filed the TT03, record it with Mark interim / TT03 filed. Ledgr prepares the figures; you pay and file on SARS eFiling yourself.

Turnover tax replaces provisional tax, so for a year you are registered for there is no IRP6: the IRP6 card says so instead of showing a figure, and the year's IRP6 payments come off the deadline card.

Dividends tax: the DTR01 and the DTR02

Whether a dividend is exempt turns on who received it — a resident company is exempt under section 64F, a natural person is not — and a general ledger holds none of that. So dividend declarations are captured with their beneficial owners rather than derived. SARS takes dividends tax in two steps on eFiling, both typed in (SARS guide DT-GEN-01-G02): first the DTR01, the dividend and each beneficial owner it was paid to, with their identity, tax residence, any exemption claimed and the rate; then the DTR02 return, which SARS pre-populates from the DTR01 and you check, file and pay by the end of the month after the dividend was paid. Ledgr gives you the field sheet with the dividend, the totals and the tax the DTR02 should show, and the beneficial owner schedule (CSV), one row per owner, to capture the DTR01 from. SARS publishes no spreadsheet to upload for either form, so nothing is attached.

The solvency and liquidity test comes first. A company may pay a dividend only once its board has resolved to, and has acknowledged by resolution that it applied the solvency and liquidity test and found the company will pass it straight after the payment (Companies Act section 46(1) and section 4: assets, fairly valued, at least equal to liabilities, and able to pay its debts as they fall due for twelve months). A close corporation's members apply the same tests before a payment to members (Close Corporations Act section 51). So a declaration asks for the date of that resolution and your confirmation, and is refused without them, or when it would be paid more than 120 business days after the resolution, when the board must apply the test again (section 46(3)). Ledgr keeps the books' side of the test with the declaration: assets and liabilities, and current assets and current liabilities, at the declaration date, with the dividend added to what is owed. Where the books show the company failing either test after the dividend, the declaration says so with the figures; it is not refused, because the test is applied to fair values your books may not hold, but the directors answer for a distribution the company could not afford (section 77).

A loan to a shareholder at low interest is not declared for you. When a company lends to a resident connected person who is not a company — a shareholder or their relative — at no interest or below the SARS official rate, section 64E(4) deems the interest forgone a dividend in specie paid on the last day of the year of assessment, and the company owes 20% dividends tax on it (section 64EA(b)), on a DTR01 by the end of the following month. Ledgr cannot work that dividend out: it holds neither the loan's agreed rate nor the official rate for each month, which changes after every Reserve Bank decision. The annual statements warn when a director owes the company money and say what each 1% of the official rate costs in dividends tax; you or your tax practitioner work out the deemed dividend and file its DTR01 on eFiling.

Section 18A donation receipts

A non-profit company or a trust that SARS has approved as a public benefit organisation and under section 18A can issue receipts its donors deduct. Under Settings → Company, mark the company as an approved PBO, add the PBO reference number and mark the section 18A approval. The receipts then appear on the Income Tax tab: choose the donor from your contacts, give the date and the amount or describe a donation in kind (the donor's contact needs an address and a phone number or email), and say who the donor is and how they are identified. Each receipt is numbered in order (18A-00001, 18A-00002, …), carries the certification section 18A requires, and is kept exactly as it was issued. Send it to the donor by email, which also records it on their communication history, or download it as a PDF. A company without both approvals and a PBO reference cannot issue one, and the tab says which is missing. The same details are what you report to SARS on the IT3(d) twice a year.

The IT3(d) and the donations in your books

An approved organisation reports every section 18A receipt it issued to SARS, which fills in its donors' returns from it. There are two submissions for each year of assessment (1 March to the end of February): the receipts of 1 March to 31 August, due by 31 October, and the whole year, due by 31 May. On the Income Tax tab, under the receipts, choose the year and the submission to see the working document: how many receipts were issued and their value, the donations your books hold on Donations Received (4160) in the same months, and the difference. Two lists show what does not tie: receipts with no donation (a receipt certifies a donation your books do not show as received, so book it or look for a receipt issued in error) and donations with no receipt (money received that nobody asked a receipt for, or a receipt still to issue). A receipt is matched to a donation of the same value, the nearest in date; a donation given back cancels the donation it returns. Only an approved PBO with a section 18A approval has an IT3(d); anything else is told why.

Download the working document as a PDF or CSV, or the IT3(d) file itself. The file follows SARS's External BRS IT3 Data Submission, version 4.0.0D-10 (pipe-delimited records for the submitter, the organisation, each donor and each receipt, and a trailer that counts them and carries their hash). SARS gives the submitter a 144-character source identifier, which you paste in when you download; Ledgr writes it into the file and does not keep it. The file needs the organisation's income tax reference number, PBO reference, registration number and address under Settings → Company, and the screen says which is missing. Ledgr does not send the file, and SARS's document leaves a few details open (the line ending, the case of the hash, the header fields numbered 11 to 13), so submit it first as a test file and read SARS's response. You can also capture up to 50 receipts on eFiling by hand from the same working document.

The IT3(t) of what a trust vested in its beneficiaries

A trust reports to SARS, once a year, what it vested in each beneficiary, and SARS pre-populates the beneficiaries' returns from it. Ledgr prepares that schedule from the books for the year of assessment ending in February: every journal line debiting 3700 Distributions Vested in Beneficiaries, net of any reversal, added up for the beneficiary named as the line's contact. A vesting line with no contact is listed apart and warned about, because no beneficiary's record carries it, so name the beneficiary on each line. The total is the amount the ITR12T deducts under section 25B.

An amount vested keeps the nature of the income it came from. The books record a vesting, not which income the trustees' resolution vested, so Ledgr divides each beneficiary's amount between local interest (source code 4201) and other income (4214) in the same proportion as the trust's interest received (4110) to its income for the year. Where the resolution vested a particular income in a particular beneficiary, or the income included dividends, rental, foreign income or a capital gain, change the source code when you capture the return. Open it from the Trust beneficiaries (IT3(t)) card under SARS → Income Tax, pick the year and download the schedule as a PDF or CSV (or read it from GET /api/sars/documents/it3t?year=). Ledgr does not write SARS's IT3(t) file: it asks for each beneficiary's identity number, tax reference and address and the trust's Master's office and trust type, which Ledgr does not hold, so the trustee captures it on eFiling. Only a trust has an IT3(t); anything else is told why.

The IT3(b) and the withholding tax on interest are not prepared. A business that pays interest, for example on a loan from a member or a shareholder, may have to report it to SARS on the IT3(b). Interest paid to a non-resident also bears withholding tax under sections 50A to 50H: the payer withholds it (section 50B) and pays it to SARS by the end of the month after the interest is paid. Ledgr does not prepare the IT3(b), and does not work out or withhold the tax on interest paid to a non-resident; record the withholding by hand on the payment and file the return on eFiling.

The filing register

Every return you note as filed is listed with its tax type, period, amount and Ledgr reference. This is the register you produce when SARS asks what you filed and when. The references in it are Ledgr's own — the authoritative one is whatever eFiling gave you.

Type what eFiling gave you when you note a VAT201 as filed, and the register keeps it under the return: SARS's own reference, the day you filed it, and the payment (the day and the amount). All of it is optional and none of it is worked out for you. A day before the period ended or in the future is refused, and a payment needs both its day and its amount. A return already noted can take the details later through PUT /api/sars-submissions/{id}/filing-details, and a blank clears one.

Above the download, the VAT tab lists five checks before you note a VAT201 as filed: whether the VAT control accounts tie to what SARS is owed, bank lines in the period that nothing has booked, purchases whose input tax was left out because the supplier has no VAT number on file, documents captured after the return was prepared at month end, and input tax that was apportioned. They advise and never refuse the filing; each warning says what to do about it. The same list is GET /api/sars/vat201/pre-filing-check.

A VAT201 can be noted as filed only for one whole tax period of your VAT category, and only once that period has ended: a Category A or B return covers two months, a Category C return one month, and Ledgr refuses any other window with the period it should have been. It also refuses a window that overlaps a return already noted, because noting a return moves its VAT out of the VAT control accounts into the amount due to SARS, and the same VAT cannot be moved twice. Noting the same period again changes nothing. If the books change after you have filed, prepare the correction and note that instead.

A filed period also takes no new VAT document. A sale, credit note or debit note with VAT (a zero-rated or exempt sale too, because it is a figure on the VAT201), and a bill, expense, petty cash slip or bank line coded with input VAT, is refused when it is dated inside a period whose VAT201 you have noted as filed, and so is moving an existing document's date into one. So is anything else that would move VAT in that period: a VAT adjustment, the sale of an asset, a customs docket's import VAT. Output tax belongs to the period of the supply, so a sale missed from a filed return is corrected by a revised return for that period (a request for correction), never added to another period. Input tax is different: what was not claimed in its own period can be claimed in a later one within five years, so date the purchase in the open period and its input tax goes on that return. A document with no VAT is not held by this, only by the ordinary period lock, and on the payments basis it is the date of the money that counts. The refusal names the period and the remedy.

A sale you missed from a filed return has one deliberate door into its own period. When you date an invoice, credit note or debit note inside a filed period, the date shows a switch, For a VAT201 correction; with it on, the sale is saved in that period (through the API, send forVatCorrection: true). It is offered only to someone who may file the VAT201, and only while the date is inside a filed period. The sale then appears under SARS → VAT201 → Items after filing, and the corrected figures for that period include its output tax; the filed return does not change until you note the correction. Purchases have no such switch: date them in the open period.

For tax practitioners

The SARS module is exactly where an external accountant does their work, so the Tax Practitioner role carries full SARS access — including the export right every download needs — and view and export on invoices, expenses, banking and payroll, without the ability to change user permissions. Invite them under roles & users, or through the practitioner workspace, and they can prepare and download every return above for the entities they have access to. See roles & users.

Key SA deadlines

Ledgr's calendar reflects your own registration and filing frequency; the table above is the general shape. Confirm your dates on eFiling.

The IT3(t), the IT3(d) and the annual financial statements on the calendar. A trust is shown its IT3(t) for the year ending in February by 30 September of that year: SARS sets this date each trust filing season rather than in the Act, and 30 September is the date it gave for 2026 on its Trusts page (Key Dates for Trust Tax Matters), so check that page each year in case SARS moves it. An approved section 18A PBO is shown the next IT3(d) submission: the receipts of 1 March to 31 August by 31 October, and the whole year by 31 May (SARS's Third-Party Data Submission page). A company, a non-profit company and a close corporation are shown the date their annual financial statements must be ready: within six months after the financial year end (Companies Act section 30(1); Close Corporations Act section 58(1)), so by 31 August for a February year end. That is the date to have them prepared and approved, not a date to file them anywhere; a company that must file them does so with its CIPC annual return. None of the three can be marked filed: each leaves the calendar on its date.

Interest and penalties are not worked out

When a return or a payment is late, SARS charges for it: a late-payment penalty on tax paid after its date (for employees' tax under paragraph 6 of the Fourth Schedule, and for VAT and other taxes under section 213 of the Tax Administration Act, 10% of the amount paid late), interest at the prescribed rate from the due date until the day it is paid (section 89bis for employees' tax, section 89quat for provisional and income tax, and Chapter 12 of the Tax Administration Act), and a fixed monthly administrative penalty for a return not filed (sections 210 and 211). Ledgr does not calculate any of these. The deadline card and the overdue list say which returns are late and by how many days, but the penalty and the interest depend on the day the money reached SARS, the rate in force on each day and any remission SARS grants, so the amounts are on your SARS statement of account, not in Ledgr. Book them from that statement when SARS raises them. The one exception is the provisional tax under-estimation penalty, which Ledgr estimates on the IRP6 card (see the IRP6 test).

The CIPC annual return and the beneficial ownership declaration

A company, a non-profit company and a close corporation whose date of incorporation is recorded under Settings → Company get the CIPC Annual Return on the deadline card: within 30 business days after each anniversary of incorporation, or for a close corporation by the end of the month after the anniversary month. Beside it is the CIPC Beneficial Ownership declaration with the securities register (or beneficial interest register), which is filed with the annual return by the same date: compulsory since 24 May 2023 under the Companies Act as amended in 2022, and since 1 July 2024 CIPC will not take the annual return until it is up to date. Mark either filed from the card; noting the annual return filed clears the declaration too.

The register and the declaration. Ledgr keeps the company's securities and beneficial ownership register under Settings → Company: each securities holder (its class and number of securities) and each beneficial owner (a person who owns 5% or more, or controls the company), with their ID or passport number, nationality, address and the nature and percentage of their interest, from the date they acquired it until the date it ended. An ended interest stays on the register as its history. ID and passport numbers are stored encrypted. Download the CIPC declaration gives the owners in the order CIPC's beneficial ownership filing asks for the fields, then the securities register in the order of CIPC's template, as a file to type from; you still file it on CIPC's portal (CIPC's portal takes ten owners; any more go on its disclosure form).

A change you record (an owner added, changed or ended) must be declared to CIPC within 10 business days, so it goes on the tax calendar as CIPC Beneficial Ownership change with that date, until you mark it filed from the card or note a later declaration or annual return filed. When you first type in the register CIPC already holds, tick Already declared to CIPC so those owners do not start the clock.

A trust's register goes to the Master, not to CIPC. The trustees of a trust keep a register of its beneficial owners — the founder, each trustee, each beneficiary, any protector and anyone else who controls the trust — lodge it with the Master's Office and keep it up to date (Trust Property Control Act section 11A, from 1 April 2023). When the business type under Settings → Company is a trust, the same register holds it: each person by the category regulation 3C asks for (settlor, trustee, protector, beneficiary or other control of a trust, not a shareholding), with their ID or passport number, nationality, address and the dates the interest began and ended. Ledgr does not lodge it and starts no CIPC clock for a trust: you capture it on the Master's online beneficial ownership portal, and update it there after each change. Regulation 3C also asks for each person's tax number, a minor's guardian and a certified copy of their ID; Ledgr does not hold those, so keep them with the trust's records.

The FAS and the iXBRL filing are not prepared. With the annual return, CIPC asks a company that does not have to file its annual financial statements for the Financial Accountability Supplement (FAS), and a company that must file them (an audited company, for example) to file them in iXBRL. Ledgr reminds you of the annual return and produces the annual financial statements, but it does not prepare the FAS or an iXBRL file: you complete the FAS on CIPC's portal, or have the statements tagged in iXBRL, from the statements Ledgr produces.

Common problems

The two tables above cover every reason a return refuses to produce a file, and every warning it can raise beside one. These are the rest.