Where the law sits inside the product
Most HR tools are built elsewhere and localised later, which leaves the statutory rules in a settings page you have to configure correctly. In LetterUp they live in the engine. This page shows you exactly where, section by section, so you can check us.
BCEA
Leave, written particulars, notice, final pay, records
Act 66 of 1995LRA
Discipline, poor performance, fixed-term contracts
Act 4 of 2013POPIA
Every staff record, health data, access, erasure
Act 25 of 2002ECT Act
Electronic signatures on employment documents
The BCEA, section by section
| Section | What it requires | What LetterUp does |
|---|---|---|
| s20 | 21 consecutive days' annual leave per 12-month cycle, which is 15 working days on a five-day week. | Annual leave defaults to 15 working days a cycle, counted around SA public holidays. Cycles run from each employee's own start date. |
| s22 and s23 | 30 days' paid sick leave per 36-month cycle, and a medical certificate after two consecutive days. | Sick leave tracked per 36-month cycle. Medical certificates are filed in the vault and never published beyond HR. |
| s25 to s25C, s27 | Maternity, parental and adoption leave, and three days' family responsibility leave after four months. | All recorded as leave types with their statutory rules. Family responsibility leave stays locked until four months' service. |
| s29 | Written particulars of employment for every employee, and in writing again whenever they change. | The employment contract generator, plus the "no contract on file" finding on the compliance snapshot. Promotion, transfer and salary letters each state that particulars are revised under s29(3). |
| s31 | Records kept for three years after termination. | Terminated employees stay on file. Nothing is deleted when somebody leaves. |
| s34 | Deductions from pay only by written agreement or where the law requires one. | The salary-increase letter deals with deductions explicitly, and the payroll export never assumes one. |
| s37, s40 and s42 | Notice by length of service, final pay with any leave owed, and a certificate of service. | The offboarding checklist and the leavers view. Notice is shown as information, accrued leave as a liability, and the certificate of service as a task with a due date. |
The LRA and the 2025 Dismissal Code
A dismissal is measured against the Code of Good Practice: Dismissal, which the Minister published on 4 September 2025. It replaced both the old Schedule 8 code and the separate code on operational requirements, and it is more explicit than its predecessor about small employers running simpler processes. If your disciplinary code and letter templates were written before September 2025, they are worth a look.
| Provision | What it requires | What LetterUp does |
|---|---|---|
| Dismissal CodeProgressive discipline | Discipline should be corrective and progressive, applied consistently, and there must be a valid reason. | Cases with a sanction ladder from counselling through to dismissal. Validity is stored per sanction, and only a warning still in force counts towards escalation. |
| Dismissal CodeFair procedure | The allegation put in a form the employee understands, time to prepare, the right to be heard and represented, and a decision with reasons. | The notice of hearing lists every one of those rights. The hearing, the chairperson, the outcome and the reasons all go on the case timeline, and the outcome letter explains the finding. |
| Dismissal CodeIncapacity | Before dismissal for poor performance: evaluation, instruction, training, guidance or counselling, and a reasonable period to improve. | A performance rating of 1 or 2 cannot be shared with the employee until a written support plan and a review date are attached. The poor-performance letter follows the same steps. |
| s186 and s188 | What a dismissal is, and when it is unfair. | A probation outcome of "not confirmed" is treated as a dismissal, so the letter carries notice, leave payout and the 30-day CCMA referral period. |
| s198B | A fixed-term contract beyond three months needs a justifiable reason for employees earning under the threshold. | Fixed-term end dates appear on the compliance snapshot and the leavers view before they pass. |
| s197 | Transfer of a business as a going concern. | Never cited in the transfer letter. Moving somebody between sites is not a s197 transfer, and citing it would mislead. |
The LRA sets no fixed validity period for warnings. LetterUp's defaults of three months for a verbal, six for a written and twelve for a final written follow ordinary South African practice, and every business can change them.
POPIA decides who sees what
Under POPIA your business is the Responsible Party for your staff's personal information and LetterUp is its Operator. That shaped the permission model rather than being added to it.
s26 and s32, health data
Sick notes and medical certificates are special personal information. They are processed to meet employment-law obligations and shown to HR only. "Out today" and the calendar publish the name and never the leave type.
s11 and s18, purpose and openness
Permissions deny by default. Ask HR is never given an employee record. Insights show counts rather than a person's rating, sick reason or salary. Birthdays show the day without the year.
s23 and s24, access and correction
Employees see their own file, including their contract, ID copy, balances and reviews, and can correct their own contact details. Their own leave always shows its type to them.
s16 and s31, accuracy and retention
A shared review is frozen. A leave reversal is recorded as an event rather than an edit. Leavers' records are kept for the three years the BCEA requires and can be erased on request after that.
s19, security safeguards
Uploaded files live in private storage and are only served through a permission check. Passwords are hashed, and signing links are stored hashed so an emailed URL can never be rebuilt from our side.
Data subject requests
Full export as CSV and PDF, and full erasure including every uploaded file, both from Settings, done by the business itself without asking us.
Signatures you could put in front of a commissioner
Ordinary electronic signatures under s13 are valid for employment documents. Every signed PDF carries a Certificate of Electronic Signature showing the signer, the time in SAST, the IP address, a reference and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the document body. Advanced electronic signatures, the kind a suretyship needs, are out of scope on purpose.
What "compliant" means on this site
LetterUp applies South African labour legislation to the records you keep and the documents you produce. It cannot make your business compliant, because compliance is about what you actually did: whether you held the hearing, gave the notice, paid out the leave. What the software can do is make the correct procedure the easiest one to follow, and leave you with a dated, signed, complete file when somebody asks for it.
The same rule is enforced inside the software. The AI template review reports what is missing against a checklist and cites the section, and it is not allowed to call a document compliant. The guides cannot claim the product makes anybody compliant. Ask HR will not predict a CCMA outcome. If you ever see LetterUp promise otherwise, that is a bug and we would like to hear about it.
LetterUp is HR administration and document preparation software, not a law firm. For a dismissal, a retrenchment or a CCMA referral, speak to a labour attorney or a registered labour consultant. You will arrive with the file they ask for first.
See what the compliance snapshot says about your business
Add your staff during the trial and it fills in: missing contracts, probation ending, expiring permits, unsigned documents and leave liability.