How Fuel supports your SARS diesel refund
What SARS requires, how Fuel is designed to help you meet it, and — just as important — which parts are already working and which are still being built.
What SARS requires
The diesel refund is governed by the Customs and Excise Act, 1964 (section 75, read with Note 6 to Part 3 of Schedule 6). In SARS’s own policy, claimants must:
- Keep a detailed logbook of all diesel purchases, storage and usage, the dates vehicles were filled, and the qualifying activity carried out for each fill.
- Keep those records for five years — from the date the diesel was used or disposed of, or the refund return, whichever is later.
- Submit a claim within two years of the date of purchase.
SARS does not prescribe a single field-by-field logbook layout in its published policy. The usual columns — opening and closing meter readings, litres per activity, eligible versus non-eligible use — are industry practice, which is the shape Fuel’s logbooks follow.
The scheme is being reformed
SARS is moving the diesel refund onto its own registration and claims platform, separate from VAT, with phased delivery through 2026 and 2027. It has said many claimants could not reach an acceptable logbook standard and that simplified, entity-specific logbooks will be allowed under the revised Note 6. This describes SARS’s own system — it is not an endorsement of any third-party software — but it points towards simpler, more digital logbooks. We are following it and will align Fuel’s exports to the format SARS publishes.
Keeping records electronically
The Tax Administration Act allows records to be kept electronically, on conditions. As summarised from SARS’s guidance, electronic records must be:
- complete and unaltered;
- readily accessible, readable and analysable by SARS;
- capable of being produced on inspection;
- stored in South Africa, unless a senior SARS official authorises otherwise; and
- backed by the log-in codes, keys and passwords needed to open them, which you must be able to hand over.
SARS has not, to our knowledge, published a specific position on diesel logbooks generated by third-party software. Before you rely on any system — Fuel included — as your record, confirm with your tax practitioner that it meets the current rules. Fuel’s exports are designed to be handed straight to your practitioner or auditor.
How Fuel is designed to help
Because SARS does not certify software, the useful question is whether your records are defensible in an audit. Here is what Fuel does about that, and exactly where each item stands today.
- In the productOverrides are never blended into clean dataEvery override carries a type and a mandatory reason, is counted separately, and appears in its own report — so an auditor sees that exceptions were caught and explained.
- In the productUnusual fills are flaggedFills that are statistical outliers for a vehicle, and repeat fills in quick succession, are highlighted for review rather than left for an auditor to find.
- In the productUsage and storage logbooksPer-activity usage totals (eligible and non-eligible litres) and per-tank storage movements, exportable as CSV.
- DesignedFive-year retention, enforced in the databaseDispensing and tank records cannot be deleted for five years — not by an administrator, not by Fuel’s own service account — so a logbook line can’t quietly disappear.
- DesignedHistory can’t be rewrittenEligibility and the names of the vehicle, operator and activity are frozen onto each record at the moment of dispensing, so later edits to a profile never change what was logged.
- DesignedReadings kept at sensor precisionLitres are stored to three decimal places exactly as metered, never rounded off before storage. Real hardware readings are not perfectly round, and neither should a logbook’s be.
- DesignedEvery record traces to a physical unitEach dispensing record carries the dispensing unit that metered it, so it can be tied back to a real event at a real pump rather than a typed entry.
- In developmentPDF and Excel logbook exportsServer-generated PDF and Excel versions of the usage and storage logbooks, ready to hand to your practitioner or auditor.
- PlannedStorage-in versus usage-out reconciliationA single view showing what went into storage against what was dispensed over a period, so any gap is visible rather than buried.
- PlannedTamper-evident audit trailEach record is cryptographically chained to the one before it, so any retroactive edit is detectable, with the chain periodically anchored to an external timestamp.
- PlannedHosting in South AfricaFarm data held in a South African data-centre region, which addresses both the Tax Administration Act’s records-in-South-Africa rule and POPIA’s cross-border transfer rules.
- PlannedAccess and recovery procedureA documented, tested way for each farm to export everything and regain access to its records — including the log-in codes and keys the Tax Administration Act expects you to be able to hand over.
- PlannedIndependent assurance reportAn ISAE 3402 report from an IRBA-registered audit firm on Fuel’s logging and access controls — the closest credible substitute for a certificate that SARS does not issue.
Your people’s data
Fuel holds personal information about your operators — names, employee numbers and contact details — to run your logbook. That information is covered by the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), including its rules on sending data outside South Africa. Our plan is to host in South Africa, which sidesteps that question.
Operators are identified at the dispensing point by RFID tag. Fuel is also being designed to support camera-based identification. Face data is “special personal information” under POPIA, which is prohibited by default and allowed only on narrow grounds such as explicit consent. So it will only be switched on for a farm once that consent and the documentation POPIA requires are in place — and tag identification will remain available as an alternative.