Course title: Bookkeeping & Payroll: Get Hired or Earn on the Side

Level: Beginner. No accounting experience needed — basic maths is enough.

Duration: Self-paced — about 5 hours of reading, practice and quizzes across 7 chapters.

Format: Text lessons, short videos, practice activities you do at home, a quiz after every chapter, a final assessment and a certificate of completion.

What you need: A phone or computer with internet. All tools used in the course are free (Google Sheets and free software trials).

Price: R199 once-off (online)

Certificate: PurpleGrowth certificate of completion, issued automatically when you finish all chapters and the final assessment

What this course gets you

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Explain what bookkeepers and payroll clerks do, and where the jobs and side-hustle money are

• Record income and expenses, keep source documents and understand debits and credits

• Write invoices, chase late payments, pay suppliers safely and run petty cash

• Do a bank reconciliation and a month-end, and read an income statement and balance sheet

• Calculate VAT and understand SARS, turnover tax and record-keeping rules

• Run a simple payroll: gross to net pay, PAYE, UIF, SDL and legal payslips

• Apply for bookkeeping and payroll jobs, and start your own bookkeeping side hustle

Who this course is for

• Job seekers applying for junior bookkeeper, accounts clerk, debtors, creditors or payroll clerk jobs

• Admin and office workers who want to move into finance and earn more

• Anyone who wants to earn extra money doing the books for small businesses

• Small business owners who want to understand and control their own books

Further free resources

Free tools and sites you can use to practise, find work and keep growing after the course. All free at the time of writing.

• JobAlertsZA — upload your CV once and JobAlertsZA applies to matching bookkeeping, admin and entry-level jobs for you every day — https://jobalertsza.com/

• SAYouth.mobi — free, zero-rated platform for young job seekers — https://sayouth.mobi/

• Google Sheets — free spreadsheets for your cash book, invoices and payslip templates — https://sheets.google.com/

• Sage Accounting — South African accounting software with a 30-day free trial to practise on — https://www.sage.com/en-za/sage-business-cloud/accounting/

• SARS — official information on VAT, PAYE, UIF, SDL, turnover tax and eFiling — https://www.sars.gov.za/

• Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) — bookkeeping and payroll qualifications you can study next — https://www.icb.org.za/