Frequently Asked Questions

General

Does MBS Attendance work for businesses outside South Africa?
The system was built for South African businesses and includes PAYE and UIF calculations specific to South African tax law. Businesses in other countries can use the time and attendance features but the payroll tax calculations will not be relevant to them.

How many employees can the system handle?
There is no hard limit on employee count. The system has been tested with hundreds of employees across multiple departments and sites. Performance depends on your hosting server — a standard shared hosting plan handles up to a few hundred employees comfortably.

Can employees log in and view their own payslips?
Not in the current version. The iOS app is for supervisors and admins only. Employee self-service (viewing payslips, submitting leave) is a planned future feature.

Can I run this on a multisite WordPress install?
Yes, but each site in the network needs its own license key and its own plugin activation. Employee and payroll data is not shared between sites.

Payroll

What happens if I generate payslips and then an employee's rate changes?
Existing payslips are not retroactively changed. The new rate applies from the next payslip generation. If you need to correct a payslip, regenerate it — the system will update the existing record rather than creating a duplicate.

Can employees have different pay period start dates?
Yes. The pay period start day is set per department, and can be overridden per employee. You can have one group paid from the 1st and another from the 16th within the same system.

Does the system handle overtime automatically?
Yes for hourly employees. Hours worked beyond the department shift length on weekdays are flagged as overtime. Saturday, Sunday and public holiday hours use their own configured rates.

What is the difference between pension fund and provident fund?
Both reduce taxable income and are treated identically by SARS for contribution limits (27.5% of income, max R350,000/year). The practical difference is in how benefits are paid out — consult your accountant or financial advisor on which is appropriate for your business.

iOS App

Can I use the app on Android?
No. The app is iOS only (iPhone and iPad). An Android version is not currently planned.

What happens to clock events if the phone is destroyed or lost?
Events that have already synced to the server are safe — they are stored in your WordPress database. Events still in the local offline queue on the lost device are lost. This is why syncing regularly (especially before going to remote sites) is important.

Can multiple supervisors use the app at the same time?
Yes. Each supervisor installs the app and signs in with their own WordPress credentials. All devices sync to the same central server. Clock events from different devices are all recorded correctly.

Technical

Where is my data stored?
All data is stored in your WordPress database on your own server. Nothing is sent to MyBad Studios servers except the license validation request, which contains only your license key and site URL.

How do I backup the data?
Back up your WordPress database as you normally would. The MBS Attendance tables all use the wp_mbs_ prefix. A standard WordPress database backup captures everything.

Can I export data for use in another system?
Yes. The CSV export from the Payslips page exports payroll data by month. Individual payslips export as PDF. A full database export via phpMyAdmin gives you everything in raw SQL format.