Sage Pastel Payroll

Sage Pastel Payroll remains a fixture in South African back offices, and for good reason. Statutory updates keep PAYE, UIF and SDL calculations aligned with SARS, monthly EMP201 figures come straight out of the product, EMP501 reconciliations and IRP5 certificates are handled with exports ready for e@syFile, and the software caters for up to 500 employees on a single licence.

The product is sold as an annual licence on the official Sage shop, priced by headcount. A licence for 10 employees costs R4,476 per year, which works out to under R400 a month. From there the tiers step up: R10,656 for 20 employees, R12,648 for 30, R16,560 for 50, R19,644 for 70, R23,844 for 100 and R30,600 for 150. Sage regularly runs a promotion that gives 20% off Pastel Payroll when you buy any Sage 50cloud Pastel product, which many businesses use to pair the two.

It integrates with the Sage 50c Partner general ledger, supports multiple pay frequencies, emails payslips directly to staff and handles the Employment Tax Incentive. For employers who prefer the control of desktop software with a proper local support network behind it, this is the established option. Employers who would rather have automatic legislative updates in the cloud should look at Sage Business Cloud Payroll instead.