You hired childcare. Nobody mentioned you’d also be running a payroll.

Generally yes. The Basic Conditions of Employment Act defines a domestic worker as someone employed in a private household, and it names childminding among the work that counts. Calling the arrangement an au pair placement does not put it outside the Act. In practice that means a written contract, the National Minimum Wage, overtime, leave and notice all apply.

If they work more than 24 hours a month for you, registration is the employer's duty, not theirs, and it is done through uFiling rather than SARS eFiling. Employer and employee each contribute 1% of remuneration up to a monthly earnings ceiling. Their 1% comes off their pay; yours does not — it is your cost on top of their wage.

Yes. Section 33 of the BCEA requires written particulars each time you pay their — your details and theirs, the period, the hours worked, the rate, every deduction itemised, and the amount actually paid. It is not optional and it does not depend on their asking for one.

At least the National Minimum Wage for every hour worked, plus the statutory premiums for overtime, Sunday work and public holidays. If you pay a fixed monthly salary, divide it by the actual monthly hours before you compare — a salary that looks generous can sit below the minimum once the hours are counted, and the hours are what the law measures.

Section 29 of the BCEA entitles the employee to written particulars of employment. A signed contract with the hours, duties and rates attached is how that duty is met, and it is also what settles the arguments that otherwise happen from memory a year later.

Your au pair logs their own hours and kilometres as they work. At month-end the app totals them, applies the overtime rate you agreed, and sends you one claim. You approve it in a single tap in the email — free, with no account and no payment, forever. If you want the ongoing view, you also get a payslip PDF for every month with the UIF worked out, every claim kept in one place, a shared schedule, and a diary of the children's day.

No, and that is deliberate. NannyTank has no location tracking, no geo-fencing and no punctuality scoring. You see nothing of their day unless they connect you, and connecting is a six-character code they generate and choose to share. They own the record; you receive a claim and approve it. If you are looking for monitoring software, this is the wrong product.

Approving a claim is free and always will be. The employer view on its own is R699 once after a 14-day free trial. Their app and yours together is R1 099 once — a licence for them as well as your side, and that one is sold worldwide. The Au Pair Setup Bundle is R1 299 once and adds the BCEA contract pack. Nothing renews and no card is kept on file.

The licence you buy for them runs while they are working for you. When they move on it stops. Your employer view is yours permanently and was never tied to a particular au pair, so you never buy that again — but a licence for a new au pair is a further R399, rather than the full price, and it is the same whether you need it next month or in three years. You set them up from inside your own app in one step, and that single payment both ends the old licence and sends you the new code. If your first au pair never redeemed their code, nothing was used and you simply give that same code to the next one. What they keep either way is their record: their account, every month they logged and the full spreadsheet, for good. That is deliberate — a record that died when you stopped paying would not be theirs, and if it is not theirs they have no reason to keep it accurate, which is the whole point of you paying for it. Ending a licence hands you nothing of theirs.

Nothing you have already approved goes anywhere — past claims and payslips stay in your account. Their record stays theirs, including if they leave the job: the account, every month they logged and the full spreadsheet are theirs to read and export for good. That is the trade: they have a reason to keep it accurate because it belongs to them, not to the household.

No. NannyTank is not a law firm. The documents are templates and the guidance here is a starting point for a household employer, written to be worked through in an afternoon. Statutory figures move — the minimum wage is reviewed roughly every March — so confirm anything you rely on with the Department of Employment and Labour or a qualified labour adviser.