Built for South Africa. Not adapted to it.
Most club software is American or British with the currency symbol swapped. Pylos was written for a Cape Town swim club first: rand tax invoices, Paystack debit orders, POPIA consent and Swimming South Africa standards are the product, not the workaround.
Rand invoices SARS will accept
Every invoice is a numbered tax invoice in ZAR: 15% VAT calculated line by line, exclusive, inclusive or zero-rated per fee, a printable PDF, and tax credit notes instead of edited invoices. Pro-rata for mid-month joins, sibling discounts on the family account, and a running family statement your accountant can export.
INV-2026-00042 · 15% VAT · credit notes · CSV / PDF statement
Paystack, in rand, no forex
Card, debit order or EFT — all through Paystack South Africa, settled in ZAR to the club's own bank account. Paid invoices reconcile themselves; failed debit orders retry and remind the family. No dollar conversion, no US processor, no waiting on a foreign payout.
card · debit order · EFT · automatic reconciliation
POPIA built in, not bolted on
Consent is captured and stored with the enrolment. Medical details go into an encrypted vault (per-club keys), never a spreadsheet. A Section 24 erasure request anonymises the athlete's record and issues an audit certificate; a retention policy is set per club. Data is hosted in the EU with the same protections South African law requires.
consent · encrypted medical vault · erasure certificate · retention policy
Swimming South Africa, understood
Qualifying times against SwimSA level standards (Level 1–3, SANJ, Senior Nationals) per stroke, distance, age and gender. Results come back from the meet as a Lenex, SDIF or Hy-Tek file and match themselves to your roster; personal bests and club records recalculate. Entries export in Hy-Tek HY3.
SwimSA standards · Lenex / HY3 import · club records · HY3 entries
Reminders that reach a South African phone
Urgent alerts (weather, pool closures) by SMS through BulkSMS, a South African provider — no international short codes. Invoice and session reminders by email; a one-tap WhatsApp reminder on any unpaid invoice.
BulkSMS · email · WhatsApp reminder link
Support in your time zone
Pylos is built and run in South Africa. Setup, migration of your existing roster and billing, and support happen in SAST — not overnight tickets to another continent.
SAST · onboarding with your data · one contact
Questions clubs ask first
The honest answers, including the one about Sage.
- Is the club VAT-registered? Does that matter?
- Both work. A VAT-registered club issues invoices with 15% VAT shown; a club below the threshold sets its fees to zero-rated or exempt and invoices still carry the club's details, numbering and a statement trail.
- Where is our data stored?
- In the EU (Ireland) on Supabase, with error monitoring in Sentry's EU region. POPIA permits cross-border transfer where the recipient is bound by comparable protection; the data processing terms your families accept in the enrolment wizard say so in plain language.
- Can families pay by debit order?
- Yes — Paystack debit orders and card authorisations are set up during enrolment; EFT with a reference is the manual option and reconciles when the payment is recorded.
- We use Sage for the books.
- Export the ledger, sales invoices or a Xero-format file for your accountant from Financials. Xero connects live; Sage is served by the export until enough clubs ask for a direct connection.
- What about climbing gyms and other sports?
- The same platform runs competitive climbing (Pylos Ascend) with grades instead of times, and general sports clubs. Billing, POPIA and payments are identical.
Ready for a modern swim academy?
Built for South African swim academies, from single-pool clubs to multi-site sports schools. Setup takes less than 10 minutes.