Bookkeeping
What is a trial balance?
What a trial balance is, how to read one, what it catches and what it misses — with a worked example in rands.
Tax and bookkeeping, in plain words
The questions every Botswana business googles, answered with worked examples in pula — and honest about where a registered practitioner takes over. Written by the team behind Bala.
All guides
- Manufacturing
Manufacturing in [[brand]]: recipes, production runs and true cost
Recipes (bills of materials), planning and completing a production run, what a unit really cost, reversing a completion, breaking units down and seeing shortages.
- Purchasing
Ordering from shortages: purchase orders, receiving goods and billing
Turning production shortages into purchase orders, receiving goods (in parts), recording one or more supplier bills, and reading goods received not yet billed.
- Stock
Lot tracking: expiry, shortest-expiry-first, corrections, returns and recalls
Turning lots on for an item, expiry and shelf life, oldest-expiry-first issuing, correcting or moving lots, returns to stock and the recall trace.
- Desktop app
Updating the [[brand]] desktop app: Check for updates
How the desktop app tells you about a new version, what Later does, and how to check for updates yourself in Settings.
South Africa rules
These guides are written from South Africa’s rules — Botswana differences are noted inside where they exist.
- VATSouth Africa
VAT registration in South Africa: when you must, when you may
The compulsory VAT threshold (R1m to 31 March 2026, R2.3m from 1 April 2026), the any-consecutive-12-months test, and voluntary registration explained.
- Income taxSouth Africa
Provisional tax and the IRP6, explained
Who is a provisional taxpayer, how the basic amount and 8% escalation work, and the 90%/80% safe harbours on the second IRP6.
- StructureSouth Africa
Sole proprietor vs (Pty) Ltd: what actually changes
Liability, tax rates, PAYE on your own salary, dividends tax, CIPC admin and the director's loan trap — what incorporation really changes, in rands.
- Company taxSouth Africa
What is a director's loan account — and why a debit balance matters
How a director's loan account works, credit vs debit balances, and why an overdrawn account raises deemed-dividend questions (s 64E(4)) for a practitioner.
- PayrollSouth Africa
PAYE on bonuses: why your bonus month's tax looks wrong
The annualisation (difference) method SARS-compliant payrolls use on bonuses, with a worked rand example — and why the deduction is usually right.
- Income taxSouth Africa
Turnover tax for micro businesses: the R1 million test
How South Africa's turnover tax works, the R1m qualifying turnover test, the disqualification questions, and when it beats normal income tax.
- VATSouth Africa
What makes a tax invoice valid?
Section 20 requirements for full and abridged tax invoices in South Africa, the R5,000 line, Botswana's equivalents — and which numbers never belong on an invoice.
- Client moneySouth Africa
Paying out of trust for a client: payee and authority
How to record a payment from the trust account on a client's instruction — who was paid, under what authority, and why the system refuses to overdraw a client.
- Client moneySouth Africa
Why you should never invoice a trust deposit
A real case, anonymised: a deposit invoiced as a fee became income and VAT that the firm never earned. What went wrong and how to put it right.
- Client moneySouth Africa
The client money statement and the monthly trust reconciliation
Giving a client their statement, why it may show only money in or no logo, and reconciling the trust account to the bank every month.
- Client moneySouth Africa
Correcting a mistake in trust: reversing a wrongly posted movement
A client money ledger is never edited. A wrong entry is reversed — with a reason — by an equal and opposite entry that says so.
- Client moneySouth Africa
How client money (trust) works in [[brand]]
One pooled trust bank account, a ledger per client, four kinds of movement and the firm's own ledger for bank charges — how [[brand]] keeps client money apart from the firm's.
- Client moneySouth Africa
Asking a client to deposit into trust: the trust deposit request
How to ask a client to pay money into your trust account without issuing a tax invoice — and how to link the deposit when it arrives.
- Client moneySouth Africa
Recording money received into trust, and the balance brought forward
Recording a deposit on a client's trust ledger one at a time, and bringing in money you already held before you started on [[brand]].
- Client moneySouth Africa
Importing your trust bank statement (PDF or CSV)
Allocate a month of trust bank lines at once: suggestions, Decide later, Leave this line out, posting in parts, already-recorded lines, bank charges and the firm's own money.
- Client moneySouth Africa
Raising a fee note against money held in trust, and settling it from trust
Bill this client from trust → Mark as sent → Settle it from trust now: how a fee leaves the trust account and becomes the firm's income exactly once.
Moving from another system?
SwitchingSwitch from Xero, QuickBooks or Sage
Exactly where to click to export each file, the order to bring them in, what to check afterwards — and what honestly does not come across.
These guides explain how the rules work; none of them is advice on your position, and Bala never files anything for you. Every statutory number on an article is dated and sourced on the page itself.