Discontinuation of Debit Pull Transactions on eFiling

[Dave A]

Am a the legally authorised party to this bank account if I am acting as tax practitioner for a client?)

Pretty safe to say if the bank doesn't hold a mandate with you as an authorised signatory or online user, you're not a legally authorised party to the bank account.

I don't even now whether this is what eFiling is asking for, as they are asking for Account Number, Access Number (are they asking for the pin here?) and user number...

Pretty safe to say they're not looking for the user's PIN too. That would be beyond unreasonable, even by SARS's standards.

As for how it works, I suggest go to this page at SARS, then scroll down past the "why SARS is causing this misery" piece to the buttons below.

Clicking on each provides additional information, such as how to set things up on efiling, and what to do from the online banking service side of things
(with varying degrees of success - or as in my case - the useful information that the credit push option simply doesn't work with Standard Bank internet banking as yet).

The ABSA instructions look rather cryptic, but I'm not familiar with the product. Maybe it'll make sense to an ABSA account holder.

Good luck!

And if anyone gets it right, maybe make a post here to fill in the gaps and give everyone else a head start. At this point, as willing as I was to try to blaze a trail, it seems it's not an option for me right now.

[J7J]

Thank you.

If I file the return via e-filing and request that the client does an EFT via internet banking (at the moment, I think this might be the easiest route for now)...

1) Does the client select "SARS - VAT" (or something of this sort) as the beneficiary for a VAT return payment?
2) Do you just use the return's PRN number as reference to make sure that the payment is allocated correctly? Or is it the PRN number and something else? On the VAT return there is a long reference number next to Payment Reference No. field. Do I use only the number, or do I put PRN in front of it?
3) Anything else that I must tell the client to do when setting up the beneficiary or making the payment for this return?

Thanks!

[Justloadit]

Some of the internet banking systems allow you to set up a user with limited options on your account. One of these options is to allow a specific user to set up payments, or load payments onto the specific account system. This is as far as they can go, no balance check, no transaction check, simply set up a payment request.

The authorized user can now at any time there after log in as he normally would and authorize the payment.

Some people may wonder what is the advantage of this, well if you have multiple regular payments, then you personally do not need to load all the creditors that require payment, but simply authorizing specific payments as you wish, there by saving time.

Maybe the idea here is to set up a internet bank user on your system with limited rights, such as only setting up a payment on a creditor.

[J7J]

So I asked my client to do an EFT for the VAT payment using the pre-loaded beneficiary for SARS - VAT and it asked for an account number and name. It did not accept the PRN number as the account number, so we didn't know what to put in there... So the route I thought was going to work best, wasn't working all that well.

So I set up the Credit Push payment option to try this route. The client uses ABSA Internet Banking. I am happy to report that it seemed to work!

TIP: When setting up the Credit Push payment option, it asked for an access number after the account number. I was not sure what it was, but you can't save the settings without putting something in there. First, I put in a "1" (same as the user number). It accepted this when I saved the settings, but the payment failed. So I went back and changed this to the account number (ie. you put the account number under account number and access number). The payment went through successfully.

The client then logged in onto the ABSA internet banking site and apparently, when you go into payments, there is something for authorisations (with options for VAT, payroll, etc) and she could authorise it from there. I didn't see the screens myself, but I think it was not too difficult to get to the place to authorise this payment. The client could see on her bank that it went off (can't remember for sure now whether it went off as a line on her transaction listing, I think so - but it hasn't gone off her balance...)

On e-filing, this payment is not under Unpaid anymore and under History, it still says Awaiting Authorisation, so I will check tomorrow to see whether it goes off the statement for VAT.

Hopefully the above helps someone else :-)

[nkawit]

I had no problem with credit push. Went into my organization settings, opened the bank account, changed it to push, went to my return, clicked create payment, selected the date, clicked OK.

Went into FNB saw it appeared in enterprise banking under SARS Efiling, clicked authorize.

My staff can issue a credit push too, then schedule an authorizer to authorize in FNB.

Works for me (tm) , plus is easier as I can say yay or nay on FNB side.

[Mike C]

Credit Push works fine with ABSA Cash Focus as well.

[Dave A]

How is credit push working out for post-dated transactions?

[Mike C]

How is credit push working out for post-dated transactions?

Haven't tried that yet, Dave.

I submitted, then went onto the Cash Focus immediately and approved the transaction. I think it may become a hassle when the Auditors submit from their side and have to let me know to approve.

It is particularly an issue with Cash Focus as it only works from 6am until 5pm weekdays and even less on Saturday.

If the transaction is not approved and the date expires, Cash Focus reports it the next day as an "unapproved transaction" and the payment will need to be resubmitted.

Shouldn't be too much of a problem unless one leaves payments to the last minute.

I still prefer the debit-pull though!

[IMHO]

Well, I just discovered this mess tonight. I am always last minute on everything.

I tried their push thingy and were unsuccessful, only managed to create a duplicate payment that I 'owe' them know. After another try, I ended up with two bank accounts, duplicated. BTW, I am the legal account holder.

Next try I just closed their warning with the X top right and proceeded the normal way.

Will see what happens. Got all the sms's as normal as well as the confirmation e-mail as normal.

Keep us posted. Suppose I will now have to go open this 'push' thing. Hope Standard Bank knows how to do it!

[IMHO]

My bank does not reflect the payments this morning.

PS. I see it normally reflects on the 1st, so will give it time till tomorrow to reflect.

[IMHO]

Just got mail from eFiling that the Bank confirmed payment.

So, now to setup things for the next payment, which, as I understand, will not go through on the old method again.

Dave, maybe you could sent a general notice from the forum, like you sometimes do, to warn people in the end October cycle that they will not be able to pay as usual. Surely there is some that is going to be confronted with this at the last minute. As this tread started on 5 September, I doubt that the people who paid end August and is due to pay again end October, will be aware of it. I am talking about individuals like myself, not about practitioners who will know by now.

[Dave A]

Dave, maybe you could sent a general notice from the forum, like you sometimes do

I might just have to do that. For business related warnings and notices I've been in the habit of just sending it to the SMME owners and managers group of late, but I see you haven't joined that grouping, so I expect there might well be many others...

[geraldenek]

Dave, before you start sending notifications - I just received an e-mail for SAIT. It has been postponed till the end of October 2013.DISCONTINUATION_OF_DEBIT_PULL_TRANSACTIONS_ON_eFILING_EXTENDED.pdf

[IMHO]

This is what I have done to be ready for the next round of payments.

I went into my online internet banking, Payments and Transfers, My Bills. You must agree to their terms and that is it. Now you are ready to be billed by SARS.

Next I went into my banking details at SARS. Change your bank account to the top option of Push credits or something. The layout changes an in the middle something about Absa is displayed. Open the box and look for Autopay, Standard bank. Select that, save and close.

That is it. Apparently I am now ready? Please let me know if I am wrong.

Seems like it works like PayPal. You 'buy' something from SARS (Paypal). You go to your bank account under MyBills (Paypal) and whalla, there is the bill. Authorise it and your payment is done!

I am concerned by the clause on the Standard Bank site, that payments can take up to 3 working days to complete. How does this affect payment on the last day of the month on SARS side. Will I be fined?

[IMHO]

In hind sight, I could have done this yesterday and processed my payment like that already. What threw me was

a. I did not know about MyBills on the Standardbank site.
b. I did not see the Autopay Standard Bank option on the SARS site, as I was looking for a Standardbank option. Which is there for Business banking, but does not help the individual much!

So, all the best for those that follow at the end of the month! HTH.