Manual contributors are employers who need to apply to the GEPF’s Board of Trustees to become participating employers. Some of these employers also do not use a payroll interface or the Persal/ Persol Transversal Systems, and instead use manual processes to interact with the GEPF.
Collecting contributions
Manual contributors have different options for paying pension contributions over to the GEPF. They can submit salary schedules or create a salary output file/payroll interface which uses the same file layout as the Persal data set. Contributions must be paid by the seventh day of the following month regardless of which payment option an Employer chooses to use.
The GEPF has a clearly defined contribution management process for receiving, reconciling and reporting on manual payments. It consists of the following steps:
1. Raising the amounts payable by the employer and member: The GEPF checks that participating employers have submitted their salary information, whether on salary schedules or through a salary output file. We then capture the information on Excel spreadsheets.
2. Allocating receipts: We capture and allocate receipts for payments to the debtor accounts daily. However to finalise this process for a specific month, the receipts must be captured and allocated by the 10th of the next month in preparation for reconciliation.
3. Doing reconciliation: In the last week of every month, the GEPF does a financial reconciliation to check that there is a match between amounts received and amounts payable. We also check that receipts have been correctly captured and that any employer refunds have been properly processed. The last part of the reconciliation process is to calculate the contributions outstanding for the month.
4. Following up on discrepancies: This step is aimed at correcting overpayments and underpayments. Contributions received are checked from the 8th day of every month to determine which contributions are outstanding for the calculation of interest on late payments.
5. Raising late payment interest: Once interest on late payments has been calculated, letters are sent to the employers to inform them accordingly. Should no response be received, the matter is followed up and then escalated in terms of the GEPF Debt Collection Policy. The GEPF bases late payment interest on the Repo rate+ 3%).
Reporting on the results: Each month, we compile a status report on contributions payable and amounts owing. This is submitted to GEPF management and the Benefits and Administration Committee (BA-C) of the Board of Trustees.