A pastel payroll course trains your payroll administrators to run a fully compliant payroll office in Sage Pastel Payroll — covering correct PAYE/SITE taxation, leave, statutory reporting and month-end. BOTI’s five-day programme is practical, hands-on, and delivered in-house or online anywhere in South Africa.

Why This Pastel Payroll Course

Payroll errors are expensive: incorrect tax directives, missed statutory submissions, and leave miscalculations create SARS exposure and staff disputes. This course closes those gaps by upskilling the people who actually run your monthly cycle, so your business stays compliant and your payroll office runs without firefighting.

• Practical, facilitator-led training — this is a skills programme; delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion (this is not an accredited qualification). BOTI is an accredited training provider (Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA, QCTO Quality Partner), and for a credit-bearing route you can ask about our QCTO Office Administrator (102161) or Generic Management qualifications.
• Practical and hands-on — all materials provided, real Sage Pastel workflows.
• Delivered your way — off-site, in-house/on-site, or live online.
• Group rates that lower the per-person cost as you train more staff.

Sage & Pastel Payroll Courses Explained

There is often confusion about “Sage” versus “Pastel” — and what a Sage Pastel payroll course actually covers. Here is the plain-English version for buyers comparing training options.

Sage is the global software vendor. Pastel is the well-known South African accounting and payroll product line that Sage acquired — which is why the payroll product is branded Sage Pastel Payroll (also marketed as Sage Pastel Payroll & HR). When providers advertise a “pastel payroll course”, a “sage pastel payroll course”, or a “Sage Pastel payroll training” programme, they are almost always referring to training on this same product.

What a quality Sage and Pastel payroll course should give your team:

• Software competence — capturing employees, processing payslips, running leave, and closing periods inside Sage Pastel Payroll.
• Compliance knowledge — applying current legislation to PAYE, SITE, UIF and statutory returns, not just clicking buttons.
• Office process — running a repeatable monthly payroll cycle with reconciliations, audits and backups.

This is the difference between a generic “software demo” and a course that produces a payroll administrator who can be trusted with your monthly run. BOTI’s programme is built around all three pillars, which is why it is structured as a full five days rather than a one-day overview. For teams that also need broader bookkeeping skills, this course pairs naturally with our wider Pastel and Sage training cluster — see the related courses below.

Sage Pastel Payroll Training: Who It Is For

This is an advanced, practical course designed for staff who already have prior payroll administration knowledge and now need to operate confidently in Sage Pastel Payroll. It is ideal when you are:

• Onboarding new payroll or HR administrators onto Sage Pastel.
• Upskilling existing finance staff who inherited the payroll function.
• Standardising how a team processes payroll after a system migration.
• Reducing key-person risk by cross-training a second administrator.

Prerequisite: participants are required to have prior knowledge of payroll administration. If your staff are completely new to payroll, contact us and we will recommend the right foundational starting point before this course.

Course Outline (5 Days)

The course follows a full five-day, practical structure. Each day builds from running a compliant office through to advanced features and auditing.

Day 1: Running a Compliant Payroll Office

• Effective payroll office operations and monthly cycles
• Legal responsibilities and company policy
• Processing terminations and reconciliations
• Tax reporting and statutory forms

Day 2: Using Sage Pastel Payroll Effectively

• Payroll creation and employee data management
• Leave processing and payslip creation
• Electronic bank transfer setup
• Month-end reporting and period closures

Day 3: Utilising Sage Pastel Fully

• Data import/export and information protection
• Transaction template creation
• Batch transaction processing
• Historical report generation

Day 4: Correct Taxation

• Legislative requirements and benefit calculations
• Directive application and tax computations
• Bonus and irregular payment taxation
• SITE and PAYE calculations

Day 5: Advanced Payroll Features

• Tax discrepancy identification
• Leave adjustments and annual leave loading
• Payroll reporting and auditing
• Data backup and restoration

Pricing and Group Rates

Need a quote for a different group size, a fully in-house cohort, or a multi-course bundle? Request a quote or a 15-minute callback and we will tailor it.

Delivery: In-House, On-Site or Online

We train off-site or in-house, in all major city centres throughout South Africa — Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria — as well as live online for distributed teams. In-house/on-site delivery lets us tailor examples to your own payroll setup and policies.

Funded Training and Skills Spend

This is a practical, facilitator-led skills programme; delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion (this is not an accredited qualification). BOTI is an accredited training provider (Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA, QCTO Quality Partner), and for a credit-bearing route you can ask about our QCTO Office Administrator (102161) or Generic Management qualifications. As general guidance — not formal advice — the Skills Development Levy is 1% of payroll, while the B-BBEE skills-development element targets training spend equal to 6% of the leviable amount for the defined categories of staff. Training like this can form part of how you plan that spend. Speak to us and we can align the course with your Workplace Skills Plan (WSP).

Free resource: ask us for our Training Needs Analysis (TNA) template to map exactly which of your staff need payroll upskilling before you book.

Request a Quote or Callback

Explore related training:
– Pastel and Sage bookkeeping courses
– Sage Pastel Accounting course
– Payroll and SARS compliance training
– Bookkeeping courses

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a pastel payroll course?
It is structured training that teaches staff to operate Sage Pastel Payroll — capturing employees, processing payslips and leave, applying correct PAYE/SITE taxation, and producing statutory and month-end reports. BOTI’s version is a practical, facilitator-led five-day skills programme; delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion (this is not an accredited qualification). For a credit-bearing route, ask about our QCTO Office Administrator (102161) or Generic Management qualifications.

Is “Sage payroll” the same as “Pastel payroll”?
Yes, in practice. Sage is the software vendor and Pastel is the South African product line it acquired, so the product is branded Sage Pastel Payroll. A “sage pastel payroll course” and a “pastel payroll course” refer to training on the same software.

Do my staff need prior experience for this course?
Yes. This is an advanced course and participants are required to have prior payroll administration knowledge. If your team is new to payroll, contact us for the right foundational starting point first.

How long is the course and how is it delivered?
It runs over five practical days and can be delivered in-house/on-site, off-site at a major SA city centre, or live online for remote teams.

Is the course accredited, and can it support B-BBEE skills development?
This is a practical, facilitator-led skills programme; delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion (this is not an accredited qualification). BOTI is an accredited training provider (Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA, QCTO Quality Partner), and for a credit-bearing route you can ask about our QCTO Office Administrator (102161) or Generic Management qualifications. As general guidance, training like this can still form part of your skills-development planning — the B-BBEE skills-development target is 6% of the leviable amount, while the Skills Development Levy is 1% of payroll. We can help align it to your Workplace Skills Plan.