Year end

A South African tax year runs from 1 March to the end of February. Twice a year you reconcile your EMP201s with your employees' tax certificates and submit an EMP501 to SARS through e@syFile:

Once a year you also submit a Return of Earnings to the Compensation Fund for COIDA.

Pick the tax year with the tax year picker in the header before you start.

The EMP501

Open Year end. The page is titled EMP501 and the tax year, for example EMP501 2026/27. Choose Interim (March to August) or Annual (March to February) under Reconciliation. It opens on the one that's due.

The page checks everything SARS will check before it lets you export:

• Each month: the EMP201's PAYE, Liability and ETI claimed, against what was Paid according to your books in Financials, with the Difference and a Result.
• Certificates against the EMP201s: the employees' certificates have to add up to the EMP201s.
• Certificates: each employee's IRP5 or IT3(a), with its Number, Taxable income and PAYE. Numbers show as "Given on export" until the certificates are issued.

Anything that would stop SARS accepting the file blocks the export until it's fixed. The Reconciliation page runs the same checks every night, so most problems show up in the month they happen.

Exporting for e@syFile

Both buttons stay unavailable until everything balances.

1. Click Test file to download a file you can import into e@syFile to check it. A test file doesn't issue anything.
2. Click Export for e@syFile, then Export and issue.
3. Import the file into e@syFile and submit the EMP501 from there.

Export and issue issues the certificates: each gets its certificate number for good, your employees see their IRP5s in My pay, and the download is logged. The page lists every export you've made under Exports.

Exporting needs the Produce filings permission and permission to see ID numbers, salaries and bank details, because the file carries all of them. Only a person can export, never the assistant.

COIDA Return of Earnings

Open COIDA. The COIDA Return of Earnings page shows what you paid employees and directors each month, for Section B of the Compensation Fund's CF-2A:

• the number of Employees and their Employees' earnings;
• the number of Directors and members and their earnings;
• the totals for the year.

Each person counts up to the year's maximum earnings, and only pay items marked for COIDA count. An employee set to Leave out of COIDA isn't counted. The page also shows your CF registration number from the Company page in Manage.

The Compensation Fund doesn't take a file upload, so type the figures into its online Return of Earnings. You can preview or download the page as a PDF, or click Download CSV.

Closing the tax year

Once the annual EMP501 is exported and submitted, close the year from the card titled Closing and the year (for example Closing 2026/27) on Year end:

1. Check the card lists nothing still to do. The year can't close while any pay period isn't finalised, before the annual EMP501 is exported, or before next year's tax tables are available in Looped.
2. Click Close and the year, for example Close 2026/27, and confirm.

Exporting the EMP501 doesn't close the year; only this button does. A closed year is read-only: its runs can't be reversed and its filings can't change. Closing the year needs the Produce filings permission.