As South African businesses move closer to mandatory e-invoicing and e-reporting (with draft legislation pointing to a phased rollout to be completed around 2028), the real differentiator is no longer awareness of what SA Revenue Service is planning, but rather how they choose to respond.
Renaldo Muregess, Head of Software Pre-Sales at Itec South Africa, says that knowing digitisation is coming in a few years’ time is not enough: “The time to consider who will guide your organisation through it, and what this choice will mean for your operations over the next decade or more, is now.”
Early guidance is critical
SARS digitisation is not a single technology switch. It is a complex change that touches finance, IT, operations, governance, and risk. Done well, it can simplify reporting, improve visibility, strengthen control, and ensure compliance. Done poorly, it can entrench inefficiencies and introduce new points of failure.
Choosing the right partner early gives businesses the space to make thoughtful decisions. It allows time to align workflows, clean up data, and build internal confidence before SARS’ deadlines come into force. More importantly, it shifts digitisation from a compliance exercise into a strategic programme that supports efficiency, resilience, and long-term readiness.
Muregess says that digitisation should not create risk – but it will most likely expose what is already there. “Organisations looking to automate outdated processes run the risk of locking problems into their new systems. The right implementation partner helps businesses see this risk clearly and address it in a structured way.”
Key attributes of a strong partner
An implementation partner is not just a software vendor. It should provide long-term guidance, technical expertise, regulatory know-how, and even the manpower to take over manual tasks like scanning paper documents if necessary. And, with digitisation timelines potentially spanning five to 20 years, depending on the industry, ongoing support is essential.
Muregess stresses that expertise must cover end-to-end workflows, from document capture to reporting, with the ability to integrate data from ERP systems, cloud platforms, and email. In addition, an understanding of SARS’ requirements, VAT rules, POPIA, and other regulations, will help to ensure compliance, audit readiness, and proper retention of records.
Technology interoperability is equally critical. Partners should evaluate existing systems’ ability to support Peppol/UBL, eFiling, and other SARS channels, and provide guidance and support if a change is necessary. Usability is vital. Security measures like enterprise-grade encryption, audit logs, and cloud protection are non-negotiable.
Digitisation demands long-term guidance
SARS digitisation is not something businesses implement and move on from. It unfolds over time, through a series of interlinked phases that stretch from early system checks and data mapping to structured invoicing, validation, reporting, and ongoing regulatory updates. Each stage in the process, outlined here, builds on the decisions made before it, and missteps early in the process can create issues that are difficult and costly to unwind later.
Similarly, digitisation is not something businesses should fear. What businesses should be wary of is poor digitisation: tools that add complexity and are not fit for purpose.
“When workflows, data, and systems are aligned, tax compliance becomes a natural outcome rather than an added burden,” says Muregess. “But this alignment does not happen by accident. It requires informed decisions, the right guidance, and a long-term view. Businesses that choose their implementation partner early give themselves the best chance of reducing risk, protecting continuity, and moving towards SARS’ digitisation deadline with confidence rather than urgency.”