Terminations can be performed at any point in your payroll processing cycle. For example, if someone will only be terminated in the next period, you can already set their termination date in the current period. The system will then keep creating payslips for the employee until the termination date is reached.
We do, however, strongly recommend that you set the termination date before finalising the employee’s last payslip as it may have implications for certain calculations. Once this last payslip is finalised, the employee will move to the inactive list.
You can record an employee’s termination as follows:
- On their profile, click on End Service.
- Select the date of their Last Day of Service.
- Select the UIF Status Code (outlined below).
- Save.
UIF Status Codes
The following UIF Status codes are available:
| Code | Descriptor | Details |
| 1 | Active | The employee is actively working for the employer. |
| 2 | Deceased | The employee’s service with the employer has ended due to the death of the employee. |
| 3 | Retired | The employee’s service with the employer has ended due to the retirement of the employee. |
| 4 | Dismissed | The employee’s service with the employer has ended as they were dismissed in a disciplinary hearing. |
| 5 | Contract expired | The employee’s service with the employer has ended as they were on a fixed term contract and the end date for the contract has been reached without a new contract being entered into. |
| 6 | Resigned | The employee’s service with the employer has ended due to the employee’s voluntary resignation. |
| 7 | Constructive dismissal | The employee’s service with the employer has ended due to the employee’s resignation which was forced by the employer. This can only be determined by the CCMA, a Bargaining Council or a Labour Court |
| 8 | Insolvency / Liquidation | The employee’s service with the employer has ended as the company stopped trading due to it going bankrupt. |
| 9 | Maternity / Adoption | The employee is on a period of temporary absence from work in order to be the primary caregiver for a new child birthed by the employee or adopted by the employee. |
| 10 | Long-term leave due to illness (still employed) | The employee is on a period of temporary absence from work due to illness outside the scope of sick leave or because they cannot fulfil their duties for medical reasons. |
| 10 | Long-term Illness | The employee is permanently terminated from work due to illness or because they cannot fulfil their duties for medical reasons. |
| 11 | Retrenched / Staff reduction | The employee’s service with the employer has ended due to a permanent operational reduction of staff. |
| 12 | Transfer to another branch | The employee has transferred to another branch and their earnings and contributions are reported in a different UIF Declaration |
| 13 | Absconded | The employee’s service with the employer has ended as the employee failed to appear for work for a period of time and is considered to have abandoned their job. |
| 14 | Business closed | The employee’s service with the employer has ended as the business has ceased operating, for reasons other than bankruptcy. |
| 15 | Death of Domestic Employer | The employee’s service with the employer has ended due to the death of the employer. |
| 16 | Voluntary Severance Package | The employee’s service with the company has ended due to the employee accepting an offer to employees who would volunteer to discontinue work, due to a general reduction in operations. |
| 17 | Reduced Working Time | The employee is temporarily working less than their regular hours (and subsequently earning less than their usual salary) for reasons other than mentioned in a different code. |
| 18 | Commissioning Parental | The employee is on a period of temporary absence in order to be the primary caregiver to a child born through surrogacy. |
| 19 | Parental Leave | The employee is on a period of temporary absence to care for a new child (birthed by the employee’s spouse, or adopted, or birthed by a surrogate), but the employee is not the primary caregiver (as is the case with maternity, adoption or commissioning parental leave). |
End Service Checklist
When ending an employee’s service from their profile, you may encounter the End Service Checklist popup. This appears when an employee:
- has a positive leave balance that you need to pay out
- has a savings balance that you need to pay out
- has a loan balance that still needs to be paid
It serves as a reminder that there are outstanding items for an employee that need to be taken care of as part of the termination process. If you are capturing the termination, and the employee only has the last payslip as a draft (i.e. prior payslips have been finalised), you can click on each item in the checklist to open the system item where action is needed.
This popup will not appear if the following reasons were selected for Ending an employee’s Service:
- Maternity
- Adoption
- Long Term Leave due to illness (still employed)
- Reduced Working Time
- Commissioning Parental Leave
- Parental Leave
More information on these items can be found in the following help articles:
Payroll Processing > System Items > Leave Paid Out
Payroll Processing > System Items > Savings
Payroll Processing > System Items > Employer Loans
Managing an Employee’s End of Service
Once an employee’s service has been ended, you can perform certain actions to manage this. You will need to click on the drop-down list next [this information is defining/necessary] to Current Status on the Employee List page, and then select “Inactive”. From their profile, click on Manage End of Service, and then select the relevant option:
Cancel / Undo Termination
This option should be used in cases where the employee’s service did not in fact end and the termination was recorded in error. Undoing an employee’s termination removes all records of the termination and allows you to continue processing payslips for them as usual.
Please do not use this option in cases where the employee returns to work after a break in service – this should be recorded using the re-statement option discussed further on.
A termination can only be undone if the employee has not been re-instated and only the latest termination can be undone.
Update Termination Date/Reason
This allows you to edit the employee’s date of termination and / or the reason for the termination.
As with undoing the termination, this can only be done for the latest termination and only in cases where the employee has not been re-instated.
Re-instate the Employee
Use this option if an employee was in fact previously terminated, but is now being employed again. The system will record a new service period for the employee and will ask you for a new appointment date.
This option should also be used for employees returning from long-term absences during which they were still employed, such as maternity leave. In these cases, a new service period will not be created.
In each of the above instances, the employee’s next regular payslip will be generated for the period in which the reinstatement date falls.
Individual Form UI-19
Along with submitting your monthly UIF Declaration, you should also provide your employees with an employee-specific UI-19 form upon termination if they intend to apply to the UIF for benefits.
This downloadable PDF can be found on the Manage End of Service page under Service Period History. Please note that you can only download the form once the employee has moved to the Inactive employee list – this means that you must finalise all their payslips until the employee’s last day of service. If you have not finalised the employee’s final payslip, the UI-19 will remain blank.
For more information on the UIF please refer to the following help article:
Pre-populated fields
The Total (Gross) Per Month field on the UI-19 is pre-populated with the gross remuneration earned by the employee in the month prior to the month of termination. The rationale behind not using the remuneration from the month of termination is that this figure is often distorted, due to pro-rata earnings, leave paid out, severance pay and other transactions that arise as a result of termination.
If the employee’s earnings fluctuate frequently or their earnings in the month prior to termination was abnormal, you can override this field and enter the gross remuneration that best reflects the average earnings of the employee. We encourage you to make use of the Transaction History Report generated by SimplePay when determining this figure.
To override this field:
- Navigate to the Manage End of Service page.
- Under Service Period History, click on Termination Certificate Inputs.
- Enter the monthly remuneration amount into the Override Gross Remuneration (UI-19) field.
- Click Save.
SimplePay also pre-populates the individual UI-19 form with the Company Registration No. (CIPRO), SARS contact info and Postal Address fields completed under Settings > Employer Filing Details. Please ensure these fields are properly filled out before downloading the individual UI-19 PDFs for your employee.
UI-2.7
SimplePay also generates UI-2.7 forms alongside individual UI-19 forms. These are applicable to employees that remain employed with the company, but are terminated on the system using the following UIF status codes:
- 9 – Maternity
- 9 – Adoption
- 10 – Long-term leave due to illness
- 17 – Reduced Working Time
- 18 – Commissioning Parental
- 19 – Parental
When selecting one of these codes, two additional fields will appear when ending an employee’s service:
Expected return date: This is the date that you expect the employee to return to work. It is imperative that this is completed correctly, as it is used to generate the UI-2.7 form. If the employee’s date of return is later extended, you will need to update it here in order to update the UI-2.7 form.
Paid During Temporary Absence: If you select this checkbox, the system will still generate payslips during the employee’s period of absence, and also generates forms UI-19 and UI-2.7 for if the employee is paid partly by the UIF and partly by the employer. If you do not select this checkbox, no payslips will be generated for the employee during their period of absence and a UI-2.7 form will be generated for the employee.
To download the UI-2.7 form generated by SimplePay:
- Go to the employee’s profile after ending their service.
- Click on Manage End of Service.
- Click on the PDF icon under Service Period History.
The first page of the PDF document will be your UI-19 form and the second page is the UI-2.7 form.
UIF Declarations
When you make changes or updates to an employee’s termination, a new UIF Declaration will be generated for the period affected by the change, assuming that the UIF Declaration for the period was previously finalised. If the UIF Declaration is still a draft (i.e. it hasn’t been finalised) when making changes to an employee’s termination, the UIF Declaration will automatically be updated with the latest information overriding the previous information.
For more information on UIF Declarations, go to:
Termination Payments
You may be required to make certain additional/special payments to the employee upon/after their termination. These are discussed in detail in the following section: