Questions Cleaning Company Owners Ask.

Yes. Other businesses may qualify. Knox has developed specialist experience implementing payroll savings for cleaning companies, which is why the service is built around them.

Knox does not replace your accountant. The review focuses specifically on payroll and payroll savings, to establish whether an opportunity has been missed.

Accountants generally focus on accounting, bookkeeping, income tax and VAT, and payroll savings implementation is not widely taught in accounting programmes. Payroll providers focus on processing payroll.

Knox specialises in payroll and looks specifically for savings opportunities within your existing workforce.

This service is designed specifically for established South African cleaning companies that: employ between 15 and 300 cleaning staff, are registered for Payroll Tax including PAYE and UIF, and are up to date with their EMP201 and EMP501 submissions.

If your cleaning company meets these requirements, there may be an opportunity to improve your payroll position and keep more of the money your business already earns.

The payroll savings service is designed for cleaning companies that employ between 15 and 300 cleaning staff. That range is where the saving is usually worth implementing.

If you have fewer than 15 staff but at least eight who qualify, your company may still be considered. The assessment is what decides it, so a smaller workforce is not an automatic no, and it is not an automatic yes either. Companies with more than 300 staff are looked at case by case.

Yes. The service is designed for cleaning companies that are registered for Payroll Tax, including PAYE and UIF.

Yes. The service is designed for cleaning companies that are up to date with their EMP201 and EMP501 submissions.

Most companies have some chance of qualifying. The outcome depends on the workforce, and cleaning companies are especially likely to qualify for the rebates, which is why Knox specialises in them.

Nothing you need to prepare. The initial assessment is a short online questionnaire that takes about two minutes. It asks about your business, how many employees you have, how often you pay them, their estimated ages and pay, who handles your payroll, your EMP201 status, your PAYE bill, how the business is doing and what you would want from a saving.

If your company looks eligible and you choose to go further, Knox then asks for the detailed payroll information needed to put an accurate figure on the saving, such as each employee’s year of birth, remuneration and hours, and your recent EMP201s.

The assessment is an estimate. It tells Knox whether your company is eligible for a rebate. Once the full analysis is done, Knox knows with far more accuracy what is actually due.

This information allows us to calculate the total saving currently available, and the total saving that can be reached after optimisation.

Yes. You do not need to understand payroll rules or know whether savings are being missed. The assessment establishes whether your business is suitable for a closer review, and Knox guides the next steps if it is.

The amount depends on how many of your employees qualify. The payroll savings assessment works this out from your actual payroll, so you see the saving available to your company rather than an estimate.

No. The saving applies every month for up to 24 months per qualifying employee, at a higher rate in the first year and a reduced rate in the second. The total depends on how many of your employees qualify, their remuneration and your current PAYE bill.

Implementation starts once Knox has confirmed your company is eligible. Knox requests the documentation (employee IDs, addresses, remuneration figures and tax numbers) and builds a payroll database from it, and either sets up SARS eFiling details or uses your current ones. As an estimate, implementation takes around 30 minutes per employee, including building the database.

Once Knox has processed your payroll and submitted the tax figures to SARS, which are due on the 7th of the following month. That is the point at which the savings are realised.

The required payroll data is provided to Knox Findata. We build the payroll system we will use to get your savings. We tell you exactly what information is required weekly, fortnightly or monthly. We run your payroll and process your EMP201s monthly, with PAYE and UIF due to SARS on the 7th of the following month. Every six months, we process your EMP501 submission.

Once you decide to proceed, Knox needs your company registration documents, your employee information (address, banking details, remuneration, leave and tax numbers) and, if Knox will be paying your staff, your company banking details.

Each month Knox needs hours worked, leave taken, any bonuses, deductions, loan repayments and pension or provident fund figures. A representative from your company completes a master payroll spreadsheet, which takes about 30 seconds to a minute per employee.

The purpose of the review is to identify payroll savings your company legitimately qualifies for and to implement them correctly. Using Knox does not, in itself, give SARS a greater reason to look at your company than registering for PAYE or VAT does. Knox processes the savings correctly and keeps all of the documentation on file.

We win when you win. Our fee is linked to the savings achieved.

Knox Findata charges a percentage of the savings received after implementing the process.

Payroll system setup is free.

As long as your company is paying its current employees and the director is earning a salary, the savings realised are more than Knox’s fee. Clients also stop paying for their own payroll software and payroll processing.

Yes. Outsourced payroll is for businesses that do not want to manage payroll internally. We run it accurately and on time, on the pay cycle that suits you.

Weekly, fortnightly and monthly payroll processing, single period payroll processing on Sage Pastel Payroll, and full outsourced payroll management. Monthly payroll is preferred; weekly and fortnightly payroll can attract different rates.

Yes, and many clients prefer it. Once Knox has processed the payroll, you pay one bulk amount into Knox’s Netcash account and every employee payment is released on the same day at the same time, whichever bank they use.

Yes. Knox processes your payroll on its own system, so there is no need to keep paying for your current payroll software. You receive monthly and annual reports, Knox handles the EMP501 submissions twice a year, and IRP5s go to your employees or to the owner, director or manager.

Accurate, on-time submissions that keep your business in good standing with SARS.

This covers EMP201 submissions, EMP501 submissions, payroll-related SARS submissions and payroll compliance checking.

Yes. Clients who go ahead with the payroll savings implementation move their payroll to Knox, and there is no cost to move it over. Where Knox takes on a client partway through the payroll year, payroll is reprocessed from the start of that year in March so the savings are applied in full. The minimum contract period is one year.

There is a one-year processing period from the first payroll Knox takes on. This covers the time, software and resources needed to reprocess the payroll year.

You can cancel at any time. If you cancel during the first year, Knox provides the reports for the periods processed and charges a reprocessing fee based on the number of months reprocessed. After the first year there is no cancellation fee.

Know exactly who you are employing. We onboard new staff properly and verify every document before they reach your payroll.

This includes employee onboarding and onboarding administration, employee document collection, new employee compliance checks, employee document verification, identity verification, South African ID verification, asylum-seeker and refugee documentation verification, biometric Home Affairs checks, fraud checks and employee verification reports.

If the assessment does not find savings, Knox helps you hire staff who do qualify, so your company can benefit in future.

Email Knox before the company you are referring gets in touch, naming the company you have referred. Knox pays a referral fee once that client signs. The referral terms are confirmed with you in writing.

Knox takes on a limited number of new cleaning companies at a time, so that every new client receives the attention they need during implementation.