Migrating from Crest Payroll

What transfers

Payroll Africa carries across everything needed for accurate payslips, IRP5 certificates and EMP501 reconciliation:

1. Employee master data — personal, tax, banking and employment details
2. Year-to-date totals per tax year — gross, taxable, PAYE, UIF (employee and employer), SDL, pension or provident, medical aid and net pay, plus periods worked
3. Opening leave balances per employee per leave type

Reports to export from Crest

Payroll Africa auto-recognises Crest's column names — employee reference, engagement date, basic wage, taxable remuneration, PAYE deducted, UIF contribution, pension fund and so on — so you generally do not need to rename anything. Anything unmatched is flagged before import.

Recommended order

Run the imports in order under Migration: employees first, then YTD balances, then leave. YTD and leave rows are matched on employee number, so employees must exist first.

When to switch

The cleanest switch points are the start of a tax year (1 March) or the start of a month. Mid-year is fully supported — the YTD import is exactly what keeps your IRP5s correct.

Parallel run

Run your first month in both Crest and Payroll Africa and compare the payroll summary. Gross, PAYE, UIF, SDL and net pay should match to the cent. Once they do, stop processing in Crest and keep the old system read-only for record retention.