Payroll Components

Payroll components are configurable additions and deductions that appear on payslips. Rather than hardcoding specific benefits, you activate only the components your company uses and assign them to the right employees or departments.

What are components

Components come in three types:

• Allowances — added to gross pay. Examples: car allowance, housing allowance, meal allowance, 13th cheque.
• Deductions — subtracted from net pay. Examples: pension fund, medical aid, transport, garnishee orders.
• Employer contributions — company costs shown on the payslip for transparency but not deducted from the employee. Examples: UIF employer portion, SDL, employer pension matching.

The system comes with 16 pre-built components covering the most common South African payroll scenarios. All are inactive by default — you activate only what you need.

Activating components

Go to MBS Attendance → Pay Components. Components are grouped by type. Click the grey dot next to any component to activate it (dot turns green). Click Edit to configure the details:

• Calculation method — fixed rand amount, percentage of gross, or per kilometre driven
• Default value — the amount or percentage to apply if no employee-specific override is set
• Taxable portion — what percentage of this component is taxable. Car allowance is 80% taxable; meal allowance is 0%.
• Reduces taxable income — tick this for pension and provident fund contributions, which reduce the income subject to PAYE
• IRP5 code — the SARS source code for year-end tax certificates. Pre-filled for standard components.

Assigning to employees

Open an employee record and scroll to the Payroll Components table at the bottom. Only active components appear here. Tick the checkbox next to a component to assign it. You can:

• Leave the value blank to use the component's default
• Enter a custom value to override the default for this employee
• Set effective from/to dates if the component only applies for a period
• Add notes (e.g. "Toyota Hilux" for a car allowance)

Department-level assignment

When editing a department, a component table appears below the main form. Components assigned here apply to every employee in the department automatically. This is ideal for blanket deductions like transport fees.

If an employee has their own assignment for the same component, their setting overrides the department setting. Setting a component to inactive on an employee record removes the department default for that person only.

Mileage log

For components set to Per kilometre calculation, go to MBS Attendance → Mileage Log to record km driven each month. Select the employee, the component, the date and km driven. The amount is calculated automatically at the configured rate (default: R4.84/km for 2026/27).

Mileage entries for a period are summed when the payslip for that period is generated. Update the km rate in the component settings each tax year when SARS publishes new rates.