Wednesday, 4 November 2026 has officially been declared a public holiday throughout South Africa for the Local Government Elections. The 4 November 2026 public holiday may look like a simple calendar update — but for Payroll, HR and Operations teams there is more to check, particularly where November leave, shifts and working schedules have already been planned or processed.
What to check now
- Payroll and HR calendars: Add 4 November 2026 as a public holiday and check that the change feeds through correctly to calculations.
- Time & Attendance / Clocking: Update public-holiday calendars, shift rules, clocking rules and interfaces.
- Shifts and rosters: Review employees scheduled to work and make sure the correct public-holiday rules will apply.
- Payroll calculations: Check public-holiday remuneration for employees who will work on the day, especially where shifts, overtime or bargaining council rules are involved.
- Integrated systems: Don’t forget downstream systems or interfaces that use working-day calendars such as payroll, HR, ESS, leave, T&A, rostering and scheduling don’t always update one another automatically.
- Already completed planning: If November schedules, leave calendars or rosters have already been issued, they may need to be reviewed and communicated again.
Correcting leave already booked
Check employees with approved or submitted leave (annual, parental, study or any other type) that includes 4 November. Where it would ordinarily have been a working day, the public holiday should not be deducted as leave. If leave has already been deducted or processed, the transaction or balance may need to be amended or credited back. Options to correct affected transactions and balances include:
- Update the public holiday in your system.
- Pull reports to establish which employees require a leave day back.
- Add a leave transaction to credit the day back (likely as a “negative” leave batch (-1)).
- Add a leave day to the leave-type balance.
- Remove the transactions and ask employees to resubmit once the system has been updated.
- Export the transactions, remove them, and upload corrected transactions accordingly.
If Wednesday, 4 November would ordinarily have been a working day, the public holiday must be accounted for and the employee should not lose that annual-leave entitlement. Depending on how your system is configured, this may mean amending or reprocessing the leave transaction, or crediting the applicable day/hours back to the employee’s leave balance.
Where possible, do this through the normal leave transaction or adjustment process rather than simply changing a balance, so that there is a clear audit trail.
Communicating with staff
Make sure employees are aware of any schedule changes, the elections themselves, and the time needed to travel to voting stations. Consider adjustments that give everyone the opportunity to vote while keeping operations running. Voting stations are anticipated to be open from 07:00–21:00 on 4 November 2026.
One new public holiday can touch quite a few processes and operations. A quick check now is much easier than leave and payroll corrections in November.
Need a hand?
If you’d like help adding the public holiday in Sage 300 People, correcting affected leave, or reviewing your payroll, HR and Time & Attendance setup, get in touch with BSM Solutions — we’re here to help.
Official reference: Government Gazette No. 55352 – Proclamation Notice 346 of 2026. Government of South Africa
Please feel free to share this with your Payroll, HR, Operations, Time & Attendance, and scheduling teams.
