Understanding Your Payslip

Why read your payslip — and its parts

Your payslip is the record of what you earned and where every deduction went. Payroll mistakes happen — missed overtime, the wrong rate, a deduction that should have stopped — and if you never check, nobody else will.

📄 Most payslips have the same main parts, even if the layout differs:

• Your details — name, employee number, job title, sometimes your tax number
• Pay period — the week or month this payslip covers, and the pay date
• Earnings — basic pay, overtime, commission, allowances, bonuses
• Deductions — money taken off before you are paid, like PAYE and UIF
• Employer contributions — amounts your employer pays on top, which are NOT taken from your pay
• Net pay — what is paid into your account
• Year-to-date totals — running totals since the start of the tax year