Running your business on Otjetu HR

1Create your company account

This creates a private, isolated workspace for your business.

1. Go to otjetu-hr.com and click “Register your business.”

   The 30-day free trial starts automatically — no card needed.

2. Pick a plan.

   Choose by team size (Micro up to 5, Starter 15, Growth 50, Business 100). You can switch later.

3. Enter company & admin details.

   Company name, industry, size, then your name, work email and a strong password. This first account is the Company Admin.

4. Click “Start trial.”

   You land on your Dashboard with a Getting Started checklist.

2Logging in — you and your staff

Everyone signs in at the same address: otjetu-hr.com/login.

• You (the admin) sign in with the email and password you registered with.
• Your employees sign in with the email you invited them with — they don't register a new account.
• Forgot a password? Click Forgot password? — a reset code is emailed to you.

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

2FA adds a second step at login: after your password you enter a 6-digit code from an authenticator app on your phone. It's optional but strongly recommended — the account holds payroll and staff data. It's off until you switch it on.

• 1. Get an authenticator app

  Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or Authy — free on any phone.

• 2. Open the setup

  Admins: Settings → MFA Setup. Employees: My Portal → Profile → Security → Set up 2FA.

• 3. Scan the QR code

  Point your authenticator app at the QR code shown on screen.

• 4. Confirm & save backup codes

  Enter the 6-digit code the app shows to finish. Keep the backup codes somewhere safe — they let you in if you lose your phone.

From then on, that account asks for the current 6-digit code at every login. You'll also see a one-time “Secure your account” prompt on the dashboard until you either set it up or dismiss it.

3The 8 setup steps

Your Dashboard shows a “Getting Started 0/8” checklist. Work through it top to bottom — under an hour for most companies.

1. Upload your company logo

   Appears on payslips & certificates. Settings → Organization.

2. Add departments

   e.g. Admin, Operations, Sales — how you group and report on staff.

3. Add your first employee

   Capture one by hand to see the flow.

4. Import your employee list

   Already have a spreadsheet? Bulk-import instead of typing.

5. Configure leave policies

   Confirm annual, sick and other leave types.

6. Confirm statutory rates

   Check PAYE and Social Security (SSC) settings.

7. Invite employees to ESS

   Give staff their own portal for payslips & leave.

8. Run your first payroll

   Create a pay run, add staff, calculate, finalise.

4Hiring: from applicant to employee

Keep track of the people you’re considering, and turn the one you pick into an employee without typing everything twice.

Open Candidates under People. Add each person you’re considering — their name, the job they’re applying for, and where they came from (referral, advert, walk-in or agency).

As you work through them, move each person along the stages:

• Applied — they’ve put their name in.
• Screening — you’re checking their CV and references.
• Interview — you’re meeting them.
• Offer — you’ve offered them the job.
• Hired — they accepted, and Not taken further — they didn’t get it.

When someone accepts, click Hire. Otjetu creates their employee record for you — you only confirm their start date, gender, employment type and working days per week. Leave Assign onboarding ticked and their onboarding checklist is set up at the same time.

5Adding & managing employees

The Directory is your single source of truth for staff.

1. Directory → Add employee.

   Fill the tabs: Personal, Employment, Banking, Tax/NSSA, AA Demographics.

2. Set “Working Days / Week” (Employment tab).

   5 days (Mon–Fri) or 6 days (Mon–Sat). This sets statutory annual leave: 20 days for 5-day, 24 for 6-day.

3. Activate the employee.

   New staff start as “Hired”; move them to “Active” to include in payroll.

4. Open a profile any time

   to edit details, add a pay structure, documents, emergency contacts and dependents.

Terminating & reactivating employees

1. Open the employee's profile from the Directory.
2. Click “Transition” (top-right), choose Terminated (or Retired), add an optional reason and confirm.

   Their termination date is recorded, and they're removed from payroll, leave and your billed headcount. Their history is kept under the History tab.

3. To bring someone back, open a terminated employee's profile and click “Reactivate”, then confirm.

   They return to Active and the termination date is cleared — handy for a rehire or to undo a mistake.

Work confirmation letters

Give an employee an official letter confirming their employment — for a bank, landlord or visa.

1. Open the employee's profile and click “Confirmation Letter”.
2. Optionally add a signatory (e.g. the director's name and title) and a place, and choose whether to show the salary.
3. Download the PDF.

   It's produced on your company letterhead (your logo & name) and confirms the person's role, start date and pay, with a signature line for the director to sign.

6HR letters

Produce the letters staff actually ask for — on your letterhead, without retyping them each time.

Open any employee and click HR Letter. Pick the type, fill in the few details it asks for, and Otjetu produces a PDF with your company name, logo and address already on it.

For proof of employment — the letter staff need for a bank loan or a visa — use Work confirmation letter on the same employee page (see Adding & managing employees).

7Salaried vs hourly pay

Each employee needs a pay structure on their profile. Choose how they're paid:

Where to set & change an employee's pay

Pay lives on each employee's profile — not on a global menu. Here's the exact path:

1. Directory → open the employee.
2. Click the Payroll tab on their profile.
3. Click Pay Structure.

   Choose Fixed salary or Hourly, enter the amount and worker category, set the Effective from date, and Save.

4. To change pay later, open Pay Structure again and click Edit (top-right), update the amount (and effective date) and Save.

   The previous pay is kept under Pay Structure History, so you always have a record.

Paying hourly / temporary workers

1. Set their pay structure to “Hourly” and enter the rate (e.g. N$45/hr).
2. When you run payroll, add them to the pay run and type their hours for that period in the box that appears.
3. Pay is calculated as rate × hours — so a temp who worked 120 hours at N$45 is paid N$5,400 for that run.

8Departments, locations & org chart

Structure your company for cleaner reporting.

• Departments — group staff (Sales, Ops…). Deleting one with staff assigned is blocked, so you can't orphan people.
• Locations — physical sites; mark one as headquarters.
• Org Chart — a visual of who reports to whom, built from the “Reports To” field on each profile.

9Running payroll

A pay run moves through clear stages: Draft → Review → Approved → Finalized.

1. Pay Runs → New pay run.

   Choose the month.

2. Add employees.

   Tick who to pay. For hourly staff, enter their hours here.

3. Review the totals.

   Gross, PAYE, NSSA and net are worked out automatically for each person.

4. Approve, then Finalize.

   Finalising locks the run and unlocks downloads.

5. Download & share.

   Payslip PDFs, PAYE returns, EFT bank files, journals — and email payslips to staff.

Overtime, allowances, deductions, expenses & loans

Set these up once and they flow into each month's pay run automatically.

10Leave management

Staff request, managers approve, balances update automatically.

• Leave Types — annual, sick, maternity, compassionate + your own. Namibian statutory defaults are pre-loaded.
• Approvals — requests from staff land here to approve or decline.
• Team Calendar & Holidays — see who's off and all 13 Namibian public holidays.
• Balances & Liability — live balances and the financial value of accrued leave.

11Time & attendance

Track hours for staff whose time varies.

• Capture Timesheets and define Work Schedules (expected hours, start time).
• Approved timesheet hours flow into payroll — overtime at 1.5× (weekday) and 2× (Sunday/public holiday), per the Labour Act.

12Goals & performance reviews

Set what your people are working towards, and keep a record of the performance conversations you have with them.

Open Performance under People. There are two tabs.

Goals — what someone is working towards. Give it a plain title (“Finish the stock-take by month end”), an optional target date, and slide the progress bar along as the work moves. Mark it Achieved when it’s done, or Not achieved if it didn’t happen. Anything past its target date and still open shows as Past due.

Reviews — the record of a performance conversation. A review moves through three steps:

1. Draft — you write it. Only you and HR can see it.
2. Shared — you click Share. Now the employee can read it in My Portal. It becomes read-only — move it back to draft if you need to change something.
3. Signed off — the employee confirms they’ve read it, and can add their own comment. That makes it final.

The rating is plain language: Needs improvement, Meets expectations or Exceeds expectations. You can also leave it unrated and just record the conversation.

13Namibian compliance

Stay on the right side of local rules without spreadsheets.

• Affirmative Action — targets, progress and demographics reporting.
• Work Permit Register — track expiry dates with traffic-light alerts.
• PAYE 5 certificates and PAYE returns generated from payroll.

14Reports

Reports pulls headcount, payroll cost, PAYE/NSSA liability, turnover, tenure and demographics into one place — export for management or auditors.

15Company documents

One place for the documents everyone needs — policies, contract templates, forms, your handbook and notices.

Open Documents. Upload a file, give it a name and pick a category: Policy, Contract template, Form, Handbook, Notice or Other.

Everyone in your company can open and download these. Only admins and HR can upload or delete them.

This is different from the documents on an employee’s own record (their ID copy, their contract) — those stay private to that employee and HR. Company documents are the ones meant for everybody.

16Employee self-service (ESS)

Once invited, each employee gets a simple portal — My Portal — showing only their own information.

17Users, roles & permissions

Control who can do what.

• Users — invite colleagues (HR, managers) and see pending invites.
• Roles — Company Admin, plus custom roles with specific permissions. Clone a role to tweak it.
• Audit Log — a record of who changed what.

18Plans & what each one unlocks

Otjetu comes in five plans. Each one includes everything the plan below it has, plus more — so you only pay for what your business needs.

Your plan is shown under Settings → Subscription, where you can move up or down at any time as your team changes. Prices are the base fee; extra employees beyond your plan’s count are billed per person (see your subscription page for the exact rate).

19Settings & branding

Tune the platform to your business.

• Organization — logo, company details and your statutory registration numbers.
• Tax tables — review the current PAYE / NSSA rates.
• Pension Funds — set up pension providers and memberships.
• Subscription & Billing — your plan and (soon) payment details.
• Notifications — choose which email alerts are sent.

Add your business details

Under Settings → Organization → Statutory & Registration Details, fill in your company's official numbers. They appear on the documents Otjetu generates (payslips, PAYE 5 and SSC returns) and confirm your business is registered:

• Company registration no. (BIPA)

  Your registered company number.

• Income Tax & VAT numbers

  Your NamRA income tax number, plus your VAT number if you're VAT-registered.

• PAYE & Social Security (SSC) numbers

  Your employer registration numbers for each statutory body — needed for valid returns.

• Registered address & phone

  Shown on official letters and documents.

20Emails the platform sends

Automatic, branded emails keep everyone informed: