Getting payslips to a client's employees

How a bureau e-mails payslips to a client's employees who have no Achekam login, switches on automatic sending, and shows from the log that they went.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 5 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Payslips are the part of payroll every employee sees, and the part a bureau hears about when it goes wrong. An employee who did not receive a payslip assumes something is being hidden. A payslip that reached the wrong person is a breach of that employee's privacy, and of the client's trust in the bureau. A client asked by the labour inspector to show that payslips were issued needs more than the bureau's word.

For a bureau, the employees are not its own staff. They do not sign in to the bureau's systems, and the bureau may never meet them. So the question is practical: how do the payslips reach them, and how can the bureau show that they did?

Payslips go by e-mail, one employee at a time

Achekam produces each payslip as a PDF and e-mails it to one person per message, keeping a record of every send. The firm's own staff can see their payslips under HOME > My Payslips & Leave, and a staff member whose login is linked to their payroll record can download their own payslips through self-service. A client's employees have no login, so their payslips reach them by e-mail only.

One employee per message matters more than it seems. A single e-mail to a supervisor with the whole team's payslips attached, or a batch sent with every address visible, puts everyone's pay in front of everyone else. Sending each payslip separately to its own employee removes that risk at source.

It also puts the weight on the address. Before the first send for any client, check the e-mail address on every employee record:

• Personal, not shared. A shared mailbox at the client, or a line manager's address, defeats the point.
• Current. Addresses copied from an old provider's export are often years out of date.
• Confirmed by the employee, where the client can arrange it, rather than typed from a form by someone else.

E-mailing needs an e-mail service configured on the server. If the bureau's workspace has none, payslips can still be downloaded, but they cannot be e-mailed from Achekam.

Automatic sending on approval: off until switched on

Payslips can be sent by hand, or an employer setting sends them automatically when a run is approved. Automatic sending is off until the firm switches it on for an employer.

That default is sensible for a bureau. Leave it off for a new client's first cycle or two while the set-up is proved: send by hand after approval, check what arrived, fix any address problems, and only then switch it on. Once it is on, approval is the moment payslips leave, so the approver should know that approving a run also sends it to every employee.

A short decision list for each client:

1. Have all employee e-mail addresses been checked?
2. Has at least one full cycle been sent by hand without problems?
3. Does the client agree that payslips should go out the moment the run is approved, rather than on payday?
4. Does the approver know that approval now triggers the send?

Switch on automatic sending only when all four answers are yes, and note the date it was switched on in the client's file.

Whose name is on the payslip

A payslip is a PDF carrying a logo and details. Achekam puts the firm's logo and recorded particulars on what it sends for the firm, and the logo, brand colour and company details set under Settings appear on payslips, tax certificates, EMP201 PDFs and documents composed for signature. A field nobody has recorded is left blank rather than invented.

For a bureau running several employers, check before the first live send whose name and details a client's payslips carry. Produce a payslip for one employee of that client and look at it as the employee will: does it show the employer they work for, with the details they would expect? If it does not, sort that out before any payslip goes to staff. Employees who receive a payslip headed with an unfamiliar name tend to assume it is a scam, and some will be right to be cautious.

The legal content of a payslip is a separate question from its branding. In South Africa, the Department of Employment and Labour's Basic Guide to Pay Slips lists the details an employer must give a worker in writing each payday under the BCEA, such as the pay period, hours worked, deductions and net pay. Nigerian and Kenyan employment law sets its own requirements, and the bureau should confirm with each client that its payslips meet them.

The delivery log as evidence

Every e-mailed payslip is recorded, and with automatic sending there is a delivery log. That record is how the bureau answers three common questions:

• "I never got my payslip." The log shows when it was sent and to which address. Often the answer is an old address or a spam folder.
• "Did everyone get this month's payslips?" Compare the log with the run: every paid employee should have a send recorded.
• "Can you prove payslips were issued?" The log, kept with the month's file, is the bureau's evidence.

Checking the send record each month

Make the check part of closing each run, not something done only after a complaint:

Keep a dated note of the check in the client's payroll file. It takes minutes, and it turns the log from data into evidence.

For how each client sits in Achekam as its own employer, see running clients' payroll as separate employers. The reports that go to the client, as opposed to its staff, are covered in payroll reports to send clients each month.

Pick one client this month, check every address on its employee records, send its next payslips by hand, and review the log the same day. Then decide, with evidence, whether that client is ready for automatic sending.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.