12 Payroll Mistakes That Cost Botswana Businesses Money

Payroll touches three unforgiving parties at once: BURS, the labour authorities, and your own employees. A mistake with any of them is expensive; a mistake with all three at once can sink a small business. Below are the twelve payroll failures we encounter most often across Botswana — each with the cost it creates and the fix that prevents it. For the full picture of how payroll should run, start with our Complete Payroll Guide for Employers in Botswana.

1. Paying salaries late

Late pay breaches the Employment Act and the contract, invites labour disputes, and — the hidden cost — makes your best people start job-hunting. A business that cannot pay on time signals it may not pay at all. Fix: a payroll calendar with a fixed cut-off and pay date, and a cash flow forecast that treats salaries as untouchable. ACCTAB's payroll runs release payments on schedule, every month.

2. Wrong deductions

Deducting too much (unauthorised deductions are unlawful) or too little (advances never recovered, pension contributions missed) both end in disputes and losses. Fix: every deduction traceable to a law, a contract or a signed authorisation — and each run reviewed against the previous month.

3. PAYE errors

The most expensive item on this list. Outdated tax tables, mishandled benefits and casual "net pay agreements" all under-deduct PAYE — and the shortfall, penalties and interest land on the employer, not the employee. Fix: compute PAYE on current BURS tables with taxable benefits handled correctly. This is core to ACCTAB's payroll service; see also our Botswana Business Tax Guide.

4. Poor payroll records

No contracts, no payslip copies, no remittance proofs. When BURS queries a figure or a former employee claims underpayment, you have nothing to answer with — and the party without documents usually loses. Fix: a complete payroll file per employee, retained for several years. Outsourced payroll produces this automatically.

5. Missing leave records

Untracked leave means employees accumulate (or claim) balances you cannot verify. On termination, unverifiable leave becomes a cash payout — often for days already taken. Fix: a leave register updated with every absence, reconciled to payroll. It is one of the cheapest liabilities to prevent.

6. Incorrect overtime

Paying overtime at flat rates instead of Employment Act rates (generally 1.5×, double on rest days and holidays) silently builds a back-pay liability that a single labour complaint can crystallise — for the whole workforce, going back years. Fix: overtime captured per employee per period and costed at the correct rates.

7. Payroll fraud and ghost employees

When one unsupervised person controls the whole payroll, ghost employees, inflated hours and diverted payments can run for years. We have seen payrolls where more than one "employee" existed only in the bank file. Fix: segregation of duties — preparation, approval and payment split between different people. Outsourcing to ACCTAB creates that separation instantly, even in a three-person business.

8. Manual spreadsheets

One dragged formula, one hidden row, and the whole month is wrong with no audit trail to show where. Spreadsheets also depend entirely on the one person who built them. Fix: professional payroll software — or a provider who runs it for you.

9. Compliance failures

Missed PAYE remittances, skipped annual reconciliations, unregistered employers: each failure attracts penalties and marks your business for closer BURS attention. Fix: a statutory calendar with every deadline — or an outsourced provider for whom your deadlines are their core job.

10. No payroll backups

Payroll history on one laptop is one theft, fire or hardware failure away from disaster — with BURS still expecting the records. Fix: cloud-based payroll with automatic, off-site backups.

11. No payroll audits

Payroll that is never independently checked drifts: errors become precedents, precedents become "policy". An annual review catches drift while it is still cheap to correct. Fix: a periodic independent payroll review — ACCTAB offers this as a standalone service, no takeover required.

12. No expert review of unusual events

Terminations, retrenchments, severance calculations and final-pay computations are where the biggest single-event losses happen. One mishandled termination can cost more than a decade of professional fees. Fix: before any unusual payroll event, get professional advice. A WhatsApp message to ACCTAB before you act is free; fixing it afterwards is not.

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