Details to collect from a new site worker before pay day
The personal and tax details a contractor needs from each new site worker in South Africa, Nigeria or Kenya before the first pay run and year end.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Construction businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A new crew starts on Monday. The foreman has their names, their cellphone numbers and a rough idea of their trades. Payroll needs a great deal more, and some of what it needs will not be missed until months later, when a year-end tax certificate cannot be issued or a pay run refuses to go through.
On a building site, people come and go quickly, and the easiest moment to collect a worker's details is the first morning, when they want to be paid. This article lists what to collect, country by country, and how to get it into Achekam's payroll without retyping.
Identity and tax numbers, and why gaps surface at year end
Whatever the country, collect these on the first day:
- full names exactly as they appear on the identity document or passport;
- identity or passport number, and nationality;
- date of birth;
- tax number, if the worker has one;
- residential address;
- start date, trade or job title, site and rate of pay;
- bank details, or a note that the worker is paid in cash;
- emergency contact.
Ask to see the document itself and keep a copy. A mistyped identity number looks fine for months and only fails at year end, when nobody remembers the worker's face, let alone where to find them.
Each business sets itself up in Achekam as an employer and runs payroll under South African, Nigerian or Kenyan rules, chosen when the employer is created. What payroll insists on follows that choice.
South Africa: certificates that cannot be issued without an ID or tax number
South African year-end IRP5 and IT3(a) certificates are prepared from issued payslips and download as PDFs. A certificate cannot be issued while an employee's ID or tax number is missing. For a contractor with a large casual workforce, that can mean dozens of certificates held up in the busiest weeks of the reconciliation season, so treat the ID number as compulsory before the first pay run, and the tax number as something to chase in the first month.
The Basic Conditions of Employment Act also requires every employer to keep basic records of each worker. The Acts Online text of section 31 lists the employee records every South African employer must keep, such as name, occupation, time worked and pay, and how long they must be kept.
Nigeria: the State of residence a run cannot do without
Each Nigerian employee's PAYE is assigned to the State tax authority of the State where they live. Achekam refuses to approve a Nigerian payroll run while any employee's State of residence is unknown, even if that employee's PAYE is nil. One missing State on one labourer stops the whole crew's pay run.
Ask every new worker where they actually live, not where they come from, and record the State. Workers who move between sites in different States should be asked again whenever they move house.
Kenya: the KRA PIN and the check Achekam makes
Kenyan workers' KRA PINs belong on their payroll records. Achekam checks only the PIN's shape, a letter, nine digits and a letter, and only as a soft check. A PIN that has the right shape can still be wrong or belong to someone else. Confirm each new worker's PIN on KRA's PIN checker on iTax and keep the evidence, such as a screenshot or the checker's result, with the worker's file.
Loading a crew from a file once the details are complete
Employees can be added one by one, or imported from a CSV file. The import checks every row and writes all rows or none, so one bad row stops the file rather than leaving half a crew loaded. Collect a whole crew's details in a spreadsheet laid out like the import file, fix every gap the import reports, and load them together.
Two habits make the file cleaner. First, have one person in the site office type every form into the spreadsheet, rather than each foreman keeping a separate version with its own column order. Second, check the spreadsheet against the identity copies before importing, not after: a transposed digit in an identity number is far easier to spot with the document in front of you than in a payroll report at year end. Keep the signed paper forms until the import has gone through and the first pay run is approved. Recruitment agencies loading batches of temporary staff work the same way; loading temps into payroll has tips that apply on site too.
Later changes through self-service
People change addresses, phone numbers and banks. A staff member whose login is linked to their payroll record can submit detail changes or a new bank account through self-service, for payroll to decide. An approved bank change still needs a second person to verify it: in Achekam an employee's bank account entered or changed by one person must be verified by another before it is paid in the payment schedule or bank file. That second check is one of the best defences against diverted wages, as stopping ghost workers with bank verification explains.
| Country | Do not run payroll without | Check before year end |
|---|---|---|
| South Africa | ID number | Tax number for every certificate |
| Nigeria | State of residence | State still correct after moves |
| Kenya | KRA PIN, confirmed on iTax | Evidence of the check on file |
A first-morning routine
Give every foreman a one-page form with the fields above, a pen and a phone to photograph identity documents, and make the completed form the condition for a worker's first pay. Workers still paid in cash need the same details; the controls for their envelopes are in controlling cash wages on site.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
