Work-Ready Essentials already covers what a payslip must contain and what your rights are. This lesson is the arithmetic: taking the hours you recorded in lesson 4 and checking whether the number on the slip is the number you earned.
Check the top line before anything else. Gross pay should equal your paid hours times your rate, plus any overtime at its own rate. If the gross is wrong, everything below it is wrong too, so there is no point examining the deductions first.
Forty paid hours at R30 is R1 200. If the slip says R1 140, that is two hours missing, and two hours is the length of exactly one shift adjustment somebody made without telling you.
Then read the deductions as a list, not a total. Each one should be named separately. UIF is normally 1% of your pay, with a monthly ceiling, so on R1 200 it is about R12. If a deduction has no name, or you do not know what it is for, that is a question, not an embarrassment.
Net is what reaches your bank. Gross less the deductions. If net does not equal gross minus the listed deductions, something is missing from the list itself, and that is the most important thing you can find on a payslip.
Keep every payslip. A photo in a folder on your phone is enough. You will need them for a loan, a lease, a bursary application and any query about your own pay, and nobody has ever regretted keeping them.
Your slip: gross R1 200, UIF R12, "other" R150, net R1 038.
What happens: The arithmetic does add up, R1 200 less R162 is R1 038. That is not the problem. A deduction called "other" is the problem, because a payslip has to list each deduction separately and you cannot check what you cannot name.
What happens: Right. It may be entirely legitimate, a uniform instalment or a savings scheme you agreed to. It may also be an error or a deduction you never agreed to. One question settles it, and asking in writing means the answer exists later.
My hours are right but the rate looks wrong
Check your contract and your last three payslips. A rate that changed without notice is worth asking about immediately, because it is far easier to correct in the same month than six months later. Bring your own shift record to the conversation.
I never receive a payslip at all
You are entitled to one. Work-Ready Essentials covers this and what to do about it, and it is worth reading if you are being paid without any breakdown at all.
The difference is small. Is it worth asking?
A small difference repeated twelve times a year is not small. It is also usually an error rather than anything deliberate, which means asking is doing your employer a favour as much as yourself. Ask once, politely, with your figures.
Before you move on
- Check gross against your own hours record first
- Make sure every deduction has a name you understand
- Photograph and keep every payslip
Check what you know
4 questions. Have a look at what this lesson asks.
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