Weekly pay runs for casual and shift staff
How a hotel or restaurant can pay shift and casual staff weekly, with overtime and allowances as variable inputs, two-person approval and payslips.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Hospitality businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Hospitality pay is rarely tidy. A hotel or restaurant has waiters, barmen, kitchen porters and housekeepers on shifts that change every week, casual staff brought in for a wedding or a conference, and overtime that spikes whenever there is a function. Many of them are paid weekly, and every week the figures are different.
Done by hand, that means a spreadsheet rebuilt every Friday, a rushed check and a late transfer. Done in a payroll system set up for it, the weekly run becomes a short, repeatable job with a second pair of eyes built in.
This article explains how a venue in South Africa, Nigeria or Kenya can run weekly pay for casual and shift staff in Achekam.
Weekly, fortnightly or monthly runs
Achekam's pay runs can be monthly, fortnightly or weekly. For shift staff who are used to weekly pay, a weekly run keeps the rhythm they know; a fortnightly run means fewer runs to prepare, if your staff agree to it.
Whatever you choose, keep it consistent. Changing a group of staff from weekly to fortnightly pay is a conversation to have with them in advance, not a surprise on payday.
What changes from one week to the next
Each period's overtime, commission, allowances, reimbursements and unpaid leave are entered as variable inputs on the run. For a venue, that typically means:
- Overtime for the long function nights and double shifts.
- Allowances you have agreed, such as a transport allowance for staff who finish after public transport stops.
- Reimbursements for things staff paid for on the business's behalf, such as a taxi for a late finish or a replacement uniform item.
- Unpaid leave for shifts not worked.
There is no separate bonus or correction run. A festive-season bonus, or a fix for last week's mistake, goes in as a variable input on the regular run. And because an approved run is never recalculated, a mistake spotted after approval is put right on the following week's run, with a note so the approver knows why the figure looks unusual.
Loading a new intake from a file
Venues often take on a batch of casual staff at once, before a busy season or a large event. Employees can be added one by one, or imported from a CSV file.
The import checks every row and writes all rows or none. If one row has a problem, nothing is imported until the file is fixed. That can feel strict, but it prevents half an intake being loaded and the other half forgotten. Fix the file, import again, and check the list of new staff before their first run.
Before the first run: country by country
Achekam runs payroll under South African, Nigerian or Kenyan rules, chosen when the employer is created. Each country has a step to get right first.
- South Africa. PAYE, UIF and SDL come from a tax table stored as data, and a run is refused until a named person confirms that year's table. For pay dates from 1 March 2026, a business must start the 2026/27 table from last year's figures, update it to SARS's figures and confirm it. Do this before your first weekly run of the tax year, not on the morning of payday. SARS publishes the year's tax tables, rebates and thresholds, and how employers must deduct PAYE, in its Guide for Employers in respect of Employees' Tax.
- Nigeria. Each employee's PAYE is assigned to the State tax authority of their State of residence, and a run cannot be approved while a State cannot be worked out. Ask every casual worker for their State of residence when they are taken on.
- Kenya. Payroll calculates PAYE with personal and insurance relief, NSSF Tier I and II, SHIF, the Affordable Housing Levy and the NITA levy. Capture the details each of these needs at hiring, so a new casual does not hold up the week's run.
Two people, every week
A pay run is approved by someone other than the person who prepared it, and nobody can approve a run that pays themselves. So a business needs at least two people in payroll roles.
With a weekly cycle, that check happens every week, which is a lot of approving for a busy general manager. Plan it like a shift roster: name the preparer and the approver, and name who covers for each when one is on leave. If the approver is also paid weekly through the same run, they cannot approve it, so choose someone who is not.
Payslips, the wages journal and paying staff
Payslips are PDFs with the business's logo and details, downloadable or e-mailed one per person. An employer setting sends them automatically when a run is approved, with a delivery log, so each worker has their payslip as soon as the run is signed off. E-mailing needs an e-mail service configured on the server.
Each approved run is posted to the business's own ledger as a wages journal, with the amounts owed to the tax authority and the funds shown as liabilities. Your accountant can see the week's wage cost the moment the run is approved, without waiting for a summary.
Each approved run also has a payment schedule, downloadable as CSV. Marking it paid only records the fact: Achekam moves no money. The transfers themselves are made through your bank.
A weekly rhythm
- Collect the week's overtime, allowances, reimbursements and unpaid shifts from the shift managers.
- Enter them as variable inputs on the run.
- Add any new staff, by import if there are several.
- Prepare the run and pass it to the approver.
- The approver checks it against the rosters and approves.
- Payslips go out; pay staff from the payment schedule and mark it paid.
Commission-based staff in other industries follow a similar pattern with different inputs; paying agents' commission through payroll shows one example. And because shift staff often close the night, closing the trading day across bar and restaurant covers who may close the day.
Confirm your country's table or details, load your staff, and run the first week alongside your old method if you can. Once both agree, the spreadsheet can retire.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
