How to use this toolkit

What this toolkit is

A set of plain text files you read in order, plus a set of prompts you copy into an AI chat tool.

It is not software. There is nothing to install. Every file opens in any text editor, on any phone, or in Google Docs.

Choose your path

Path 1: I have not started yet

Read in this order. Do not skip.

1. Core: start here — the order to do things
2. Pick your business type — find your business type
3. Your business type file in Your kind of business
4. What you need to sell things — check whether you need a licence
5. Branding prompts, then Brand applications and polish — build your name and look, then test it
6. Free tools — set up your free tools
7. Documents and templates — build your quote and invoice
8. Tax and SARS — sort out SARS
9. Register: what you actually need — decide about a company
10. If you decide yes, Running a Pty Ltd and Paying yourself from a Pty Ltd

Expect this to take a weekend of reading and two to four weeks of doing.

Path 2: I am already trading and want to get compliant

1. Master checklist — tick what you already have
2. Tax and SARS — the highest-risk gap for most people
3. Your business type file in Your kind of business
4. Register: what you actually need, specifically the POPIA section

Path 3: I need one specific answer

Use this table.

Path 4: I am a one-person Pty Ltd selling vehicles, and I want to grow

This is a worked path for one specific reader. Read in this order.

1. Core: start here
2. Running a Pty Ltd — what your company already owes each year
3. Paying yourself from a Pty Ltd — before you move a rand out of the company account
4. Vehicle dealer — the three registration layers, the CPA position, and why VAT and turnover tax work differently for you
5. Vehicles and your business — the BRNC and proxy process in full
6. Tax and SARS — read the SBC section; skip the turnover tax section, it is wrong for a dealer
7. Documents and templates — build the VAT-registered invoice and the sale agreement with a defect schedule
8. Branding prompts — name the trading brand, not the company
9. Working from home and meeting safely — if you have no yard: zoning for stock at home, and every viewing and test drive
10. Adding new lines of business — before you add tyres, servicing, or anything else

The sequence for the first 90 days, roughly:

Weeks 1 to 2: confirm the SARS registered representative, file beneficial ownership, open the company bank account, apply for the BRNC at the traffic department, lodge the SAPS 601 dealer application.

Weeks 2 to 4: zoning confirmation for the premises (or for storing stock at home), motor trade insurance in place, motor trade numbers if needed, sale agreement and defect schedule built, SAPS register set up.

Weeks 4 to 8: VAT decision made with a tax practitioner, VAT101 lodged if registering, VAT264 process in place, first stock bought with full paperwork.

Ongoing from day one: rolling 12-month turnover tracked against R2.3 million, loan account checked monthly, stock list with cost per vehicle maintained.

How to use the AI prompts

The prompts in Branding and marketing are written to be copied and pasted into an AI chat tool. They work in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot. The free versions are fine.

The rules

One prompt at a time. Paste it. Wait for the answer. Do not paste the next prompt until you are happy with the current one.

Never accept the first answer. Every branding prompt gives you 5 options. Read all 5. Pick the closest one even if it is not right. Then use the refine prompt to ask for 5 new versions that keep what you liked and fix what you did not. Do this two or three times. The third round is usually much better than the first.

Start a new chat for each big task. A chat that runs too long makes the AI forget earlier details. Start fresh for naming, then fresh again for social content.

Keep your answers. Save the brand brief, the name, the colours and the voice guide in one document. Later prompts ask you to paste them in.

Fill in every [SQUARE BRACKET]. The prompts have placeholders. If you leave them, the AI invents answers and the output is generic.

The AI will be wrong about South African law. It is a writing helper, not a lawyer or an accountant. Never let it tell you what a fee is, what a form is called, or what a threshold is. Check that in Sources and verification register and on the official site.

The refine prompt

Use this after every step in Branding prompts:

I like option [NUMBER] best.

What works: [say what you like, in your own words]
What does not work: [say what is wrong]

Give me 5 new options that keep what works and fix what does not.
Do not repeat the options you already gave me.
Number them 1 to 5. After the 5 options, stop and ask me again.

If the AI runs ahead

Some AI tools will answer three steps at once. When that happens, say:

Stop. Go back to step [X] only. Give me 5 options for that step and
nothing else. Wait for my answer before moving on.

How the legal parts are written

Some paragraphs in this toolkit stay close to the wording of a law, a regulator, or another source listed in Sources and verification register. They are kept close to the source on purpose, so you can check them. They can be hard to read.

Every hard one is followed by a line that starts like this:

That line says the same thing in everyday English. If the legal sentence confuses you, skip it and read the plain line. You lose nothing.

Each heavy file also opens with a short table called "Words used in this file". Read that first. Every abbreviation in the toolkit is also explained in Glossary.

How to read the facts in this toolkit

Anything with a rand figure, a percentage, a date, a form number or a section of an Act came from a source. All of those sources are listed in Sources and verification register with a link.

Sources are marked [Official] when they come from government or a regulator. Those are the ones to trust. Everything else is a pointer.

Before you act on a number

Open Sources and verification register, find the topic, click the official link, and confirm the figure. This takes two minutes and it is worth it, because:

• Tax thresholds change in February and take effect in March or April
• CIPC and licensing fees change without announcement
• Municipal rules differ between every municipality in the country
• Provincial fees differ between all nine provinces

If a figure in this toolkit disagrees with the official site, the official site is right.

What this toolkit deliberately leaves out

Employment. The moment you hire someone, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, PAYE, UIF and COIDA all apply, and mistakes there are expensive. Get proper advice before your first hire.

Raising money. Investors, loans, and grants each have their own rules. Nothing here covers them.

Anything above roughly R2 million turnover. At that point VAT, payroll and formal accounting change the picture, and you need a real accountant rather than a toolkit.

Trusts, partnerships and non-profits. This toolkit covers sole proprietors and private companies only.

Companies with more than one shareholder. The two Pty Ltd files assume you are the sole shareholder and the sole director. With a co-owner you also need a shareholders agreement, and your financial reporting obligation may change, because the owner-managed exemption depends on every shareholder also being a director.

Pricing. How much to charge is the hardest question a new business faces, and nothing here answers it. The toolkit tells you what a quote must contain, not what number to put on it.

Cash flow forecasting. The cash book in Documents and templates records what already happened. It does not predict whether you can pay next month's bills.

Insurance detail. Each business type file says what cover to ask for. None of them compares products or prices. Use a broker.

Common mistakes this toolkit is trying to prevent

Spending money before earning any. The most common failure. R15,000 on registration, logo and website before a single sale.

Trading before a required licence is issued. You cannot fix this afterwards.

Registering a company you cannot afford to keep compliant. R175 to register, far more each year to maintain.

Filing nothing because you earned nothing. Penalties grow monthly on returns you never submitted.

Charging VAT without being registered. That is fraud, not an administrative error.

Mixing business and personal money. It makes every other problem harder to fix.

Using a "voetstoots" or "no refunds" clause. For most consumer sales in South Africa, it does not work.

If something here is wrong

It might be. Rules change, and this was written by an AI.

The test is always the same: does the official source in Sources and verification register agree? If not, follow the official source, and correct the file so the next person who reads your copy gets it right.