About Digitise SA
We give South African entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools and templates that are normally expensive or hard to find, so that a good business does not fail for want of a document nobody explained.
Digitise SA is operated by Hodisa SA NPC, a registered South African non-profit company.
There are no paid tiers for entrepreneurs, no advertising, and nothing on this platform is behind a payment.
Why we exist
They fail because nobody showed the owner how to price a job so it covers their own wage. Because the VAT payment landed in the same fortnight as the salaries and there was no forecast to see it coming. Because an invoice sat unpaid for ninety days and asking felt rude.
None of that is a talent problem. It is an access problem. The knowledge that separates a business that survives from one that closes has always been expensive, scattered across a dozen places, or written for somebody else's country.
Entrepreneurial ability is spread evenly across South Africa. Access to guidance is not.
We think that gap is closeable, and that closing it should not depend on whether a founder can afford a consultant.
What we do
Most platforms give you information and leave you to work out what to do with it. Ours is built so that using it leaves you holding something your business actually needed.
Guided courses organised by where your business actually is: starting, building or scaling. Every course ends with a finished document you own, not a certificate for watching videos.
Business templates, calculators and practical tools. Business plans, cash flow forecasts, employment contracts, invoices, B-BBEE affidavits. Free to download, yours to keep and reuse.
Peer forums, mentorship with people who have built businesses here, and live sessions with South African experts. Recorded, so load-shedding never costs you the session.
Everything you complete builds one profile. It tells you what to do next based on what you have actually done, and it is what earns your Business Ready, Growth Ready and Funding Ready status.
Why it is free
There is no paid version of Digitise SA.
Most entrepreneur support in this country comes with a price tag, and the free version is usually a sample designed to sell you the real thing. That model filters out exactly the people the support exists for.
We are a non-profit. There are no investors to satisfy and no premium tier to upsell you into. We carry no advertising, so nothing we recommend is influenced by who paid us. We do not sell your information.
What we ask instead is that you use it, and that when it helps, you tell another entrepreneur. That is the whole growth strategy.
How we work
CIPC, SARS, B-BBEE, the Central Supplier Database, load-shedding, WhatsApp-first customers. Not an international template with South African place names dropped into it.
If a guide needs a glossary, we have written it badly. Everything is checked against the test of whether someone with no formal business training can act on it the same day.
Every course produces a real document: a priced offer, a cash flow forecast, a registered company, a funding application. Progress is measured in what you have built, not in how much you have read.
Tax thresholds, registration processes and legal timelines change. We verify against SARS, CIPC and other primary sources rather than repeating what is widely believed, and we date and review anything that expires.
Where we are
Digitise SA is being rebuilt and expanded. Rather than describe a finished platform, here is exactly what is live today and what is coming next.
| What | Status |
|---|---|
| Template libraryBusiness planning, finance, HR, legal and compliance, operations, marketing, funding and B-BBEE | Live now |
| Free membershipOne account, everything saved in one place | Live now |
| Skills AcademyOpening course by course. The first is Get paid properly: pricing, quoting, invoicing and collecting. | Opening soon |
| Business readiness checkTwelve questions that tell you honestly where your business is and what to fix first | Opening soon |
| Compliance guidesCIPC, SARS, UIF, PAYE and B-BBEE in plain language | In build |
| Funding NavigatorWhich funders you actually qualify for, and what each one wants to see | In build |
| Free business calculatorsVAT thresholds, PAYE and UIF, true cost of an employee, break-even, pricing | In build |
| Incubation programmePhase two. Selected from members who have completed the readiness work. | Phase two |
Who is behind it
Digitise SA is operated by Hodisa SA NPC, a registered South African non-profit company. This platform is one half of what Hodisa does.
Hodisa SA was started by people who built their own businesses without support and without guidance, and who know what that costs in wasted years and avoidable mistakes. The organisation exists so that the next person does not have to learn it the same way.
Its purpose is to grow the South African economy from the ground up by growing the people in it. That means working on both sides of the same problem, because they are the same problem.
South Africa does not only need more jobs. It needs more people ready to take them, and more businesses able to create them.
Neither side will ever carry a price tag, and both are built for the people least able to buy their way past the gap.
Free support for entrepreneurs, so that more South African businesses survive their early years, grow, and become employers themselves.
You are hereFree job readiness training, CV writing and job search guidance for young people from previously disadvantaged communities, so that a first job is not lost to a badly written CV or an interview nobody prepared them for.
In developmentSpecialists give their time to review our guidance so it is accurate as well as clear. Attorneys, accountants and experienced operators check the material in their field before it is published.
Members tell us what they are stuck on, and that decides what gets built next. The platform is shaped by the people using it rather than by what we assume they need.
Work with us
Digitise SA is self-funded and free to use. That is only sustainable with people and organisations who believe entrepreneurs should not have to pay for the basics. There are three ways to help.
Corporate partners can account for their contribution as part of their social investment. We will give you the reporting you need for it.
Create a free account and get every template, every course as it opens, and a record of everything you build.
Join free No card. No paid tier. No catch.