An accounting practice built around owner run businesses
PayStream is a director run accounting and payroll practice in Fourways, Sandton, working with small and medium businesses and property owners across South Africa. We are the finance function for companies that need one and cannot justify employing one.
Why the practice exists
Most South African small businesses sit in an uncomfortable gap. They are too big for a shoebox of slips and a friend who does books on the side, and too small to interest a large firm at a fee that makes sense. So they end up under serviced: the returns get filed, the year end eventually happens, and nobody ever sits with the owner and explains what the numbers are saying.
PayStream was built to fill that gap. The compliance work is the baseline, and it is done properly and on time, because a missed EMP201 or an unfiled CIPC return costs real money. But the point of the engagement is the part after that: monthly reporting an owner can actually use, and a senior person who knows the business well enough to flag something before it becomes a problem.
How we work
Everything runs remotely on cloud accounting and payroll software. That is a deliberate choice rather than a pandemic hangover. It means your numbers are live rather than a month old, it means we can serve a client in Gqeberha exactly as well as one in Fourways, and it means the cost structure stays low enough that the fee is realistic for a business with fifteen staff.
Our office is at Block C, Little Fourways Office Park in Fourways, Sandton, and clients are welcome to come in. Most do not, and it makes no difference to the work.
Who we act for
Roughly speaking, three groups. Owner run trading businesses between two and ninety nine staff, across trades, retail, professional services, logistics, hospitality and agencies. Property owners and portfolios, from a single buy to let to commercial holdings across multiple entities. And managing agents and community schemes needing trust accounting, levy rolls and AGM ready financials.
What they have in common is that the owner is close to the business and needs the numbers to be right and to arrive on time. We are not built for large corporates with an internal finance department, and we say so when someone in that position enquires.
What we will not do
We do not sign off audits, because we are not registered auditors. We do not put clients into aggressive tax structures, because the ones that look clever in year one tend to look expensive in year six. And we do not take on more clients than the team can review properly, which occasionally means telling someone we have capacity next month rather than this one.
Credentials and standards
Tax work is done under registered tax practitioner status with SARS. Financial statements are prepared in accordance with IFRS for SMEs. Payroll is run to the Income Tax Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Unemployment Insurance Act and COIDA. Client information is handled in line with POPIA, and access to your accounting and payroll data is controlled per user and revocable at your instruction.
How we operate
Four things we are strict about
We would rather lose the work than misstate it
There is a version of this industry that tells clients what they want to hear about a deduction, a structure or a deadline. It ends with a SARS assessment years later and the client holding it. We give you the honest position first, even when it is the more expensive one.
Deadlines are tracked, not remembered
Every SARS, CIPC and Department of Employment and Labour date for every entity we act for sits in a schedule that is worked, reviewed and reported on. Compliance failure in small practices is almost always an administration failure, not a technical one.
One senior contact for the life of the file
The large firm model puts a partner in the pitch and a first year graduate on the work. We do the opposite. You deal with an experienced person throughout, and they know your business well enough to notice when something is off.
Reporting written for an owner
Management accounts that need an accountant to interpret them have failed at the only thing they were for. Ours are written so the person running the business can read them in ten minutes and know what to do.
Questions
About the practice
Is PayStream a registered tax practitioner?
Yes. Tax work is carried out under registered tax practitioner status with SARS, which is a legal requirement for anyone who completes or advises on returns for reward in South Africa. You can ask for the practitioner number at any time.
Who owns and runs PayStream?
PayStream is a director run practice, not a franchise or a call centre. The people who quote you are the people who do the work and the people who answer the phone when something goes wrong.
How many clients does one person handle?
We cap portfolios deliberately. A senior handling ninety clients cannot review any of them properly, and that is where errors in this industry come from. It is also why we occasionally tell a prospective client we cannot take them on this month.
What happens if PayStream makes a mistake?
We tell you, we fix it, and where a penalty arose from our error we deal with the remission application and carry the cost of the correction. That is the arrangement in writing, not a goodwill gesture.
Do you sign off audits?
No. We are not registered auditors and we do not pretend to be. Where your company requires a statutory audit or an independent review, we prepare the file to the standard the reviewer needs and manage the process with an independent firm, which keeps their fee down and your involvement minimal.
Have a look at us properly.
Book a free consultation. Bring your last set of financials, your latest SARS statement or nothing at all. We will tell you where you stand before you decide anything.