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Prove every litre of your SARS diesel refund
SmartDRS™ reconciles every litre of diesel against the work it performed, per asset and per refuelling event, and builds a defensible SARS diesel refund logbook every month, so your claim goes in at full value.
- No new hardware
- Per asset, per refuel, every month
- Aligned to rebate item 670.04
SARS diesel refund logbooks for primary producers
A defensible claim at full value, built from the data you already have
Who it is for: operations claiming the SARS diesel refund on qualifying primary activities: agriculture and forestry, mining (on land and offshore), fishing, offshore and harbour shipping, rail freight, and electricity generation.
Operations that use diesel in qualifying primary activities are entitled to a SARS diesel refund. Most claim only part of what they are owed and carry audit risk on what they do claim. The problem is rarely eligibility. It is proof: fuel issued is not tied to the specific asset that used it, or to the work that asset performed, and the data volumes are far too large to prove by hand.
SmartDRS™ closes that gap. It reads from your existing fuel management and operations systems, matches fuel in to work out for every refuelling session, and keeps an unbroken audit trail from the pump to the submitted claim, aligned to rebate item 670.04, Part 3 of Schedule No. 6 to the Customs and Excise Act, 1964.
No change to your current systems, no new field hardware and no extra data capture by operators. ECS runs the service and you approve the logbook.
What’s changing
Read: why proof is now the bottleneck The rules have changed. Your logbook needs to keep up.
Last updated:
100% refund on eligible diesel
From 1 April 2026, on-land mining, farming and forestry claimants may claim on 100% of eligible litres, up from 80%.
SARS Modernisation 3.0
The diesel refund is moving off the VAT return onto a standalone process, with the new registration system implemented on 18 September 2026 and risk-based verification to follow.
Prescribed monthly logbooks
Monthly storage and usage logbooks become the standard.
Changing rates
The fuel levy changed three times between May and July 2026. SmartDRS™ applies rates from a configurable rate table, so changes are handled without rework.
SmartDRS™ results
Daily
reconciliation, so month-end becomes a review and approval rather than a scramble to rebuild the claim.
Up to 30%
of haul-fleet diesel found booked to the wrong asset*. That fuel is missing from your claim or exposed at a SARS audit.
+25 points
more diesel claim-ready, from ~70% to ~95%*. That’s 25 more litres in every 100 your claim can defend.
Plug-in
No capital project. SmartDRS™ reads from the fleet and production systems you already run, with no new field hardware or operator data capture.
Example
On 10 million litres a year, moving from 70% to 95% claim-ready adds about 2.5 million litres to your claim: roughly R9.8 million a year in refunds you are already owed.**
*Results from a SmartDRS™ reconciliation of a primary haul fleet at a large South African open-pit mine, over roughly nine months of operating data.
**Illustrative example at a refund rate of R3.93 per eligible litre; your claim depends on your volumes and eligible activities.
SARS requirements
Can your SARS diesel refund logbook answer all seven questions?
SARS can ask you to trace every litre from purchase to eligible use. If any of these relies on estimates or manual adjustments, that part of your claim is at risk.
SARS requirementWhere claims usually failHow SmartDRS™ meets it
1Quantity of diesel purchasedDeliveries not matched to invoices, so the purchased quantity can be challengedBulk receipts reconciled to supplier delivery notes and invoices
2Where the diesel was storedTank balances not reconciled, so gains and losses go unexplainedTank and storage records with receipts, issues and balances per storage point
3How much diesel was dispensedDuplicate or zero-volume transactions distort the totalA cleaned, de-duplicated transaction record
4The equipment it was used inFuel booked to the wrong asset, or to assets missing from the registerEach transaction traced to the specific asset, verified against the asset register
5The qualifying activity performedWork done is not measured, especially on support and contractor fleetsWork records allocated to each refuel and classified by qualifying activity
6Qualifying versus non-qualifying splitEstimated percentages instead of litres classified one by oneEvery litre reconciled per asset and per refuelling event
7A complete audit trailSpreadsheet adjustments with no record of who changed what, or whyAn unbroken chain from receipt to consumption
The problem
Why most diesel refund claims leave money on the table
A refund claim rests on one assumption: that every litre claimed was used by eligible equipment doing eligible work. Proving that at scale is where most operations fall short.
The result is under-claiming, audit exposure, or both. The refund is already owed. SmartDRS™ lets you prove it.
- Too much data to audit by hand. A single site generates thousands to millions of fuel transactions and activity records a year. Claims go in on trust.
- Fuel and work records live in separate systems. Without matching the two, there is no way to know whether a fuel issue is backed by real work.
- Fuel is booked to the wrong asset. It is either claimed against the wrong equipment, which is an audit exposure, or dropped from the claim, which is money forgone.
- Metering and bay faults go unseen. Rollbacks, zero-volume dispenses and fills with no engine-hour advance only show up when the data is compared.
- Assurance is periodic, not standing. An annual sampled audit leaves no evidence when SARS queries a claim.
How it works
How SmartDRS™ reconciles every litre
SmartDRS™ reads from the systems you already have and reconciles every litre per asset and per refuelling event. Select a step, or press play, to see how it turns your existing data into a validated logbook.
The systems you already have
Fuel managementEvery dispense and bulk delivery
ProductionCycles, hours and activitiesNo production system? SmartDSM™ captures the work done.
Asset registerEvery listed asset
SmartDRS™Reconciles every litre, per asset and per refuelling event
Acquire, clean and validate
SmartDRS™ acquires, cleans and validates your fuel, production and asset data automatically, with no change to your existing systems.
What SmartDRS™ does
- Every dispense and bulk delivery
- Production cycles, hours and activities
- Every listed asset on the register
Match fuel to work
Every refuelling session is tied to the production cycles it powered, so every litre is reconciled per asset and per refuelling event.
What SmartDRS™ does
- Reconciled per asset and per refuelling event
- Reconciled daily, so month-end becomes a review and approval
- SmartDSM™ captures work done by support and contractor fleets with no production system
Audit and re-allocate exceptions
Outliers are flagged against fleet efficiency and ranked by litres at stake, then corrected through governed re-allocation.
What SmartDRS™ does
- Metering failures flagged by station and pump
- Every correction logged against the original in an immutable audit log
- Every figure drills back to its originating pump transaction
Produce the validated logbook
SmartDRS™ produces the validated logbook every month, packaged for submission to SARS. You review and sign off, ECS issues the logbook and claim pack, and you remain the claimant.
Packaged for SARS every month
- Transaction records
- Fuel supply records
- Inventory records
What you receive
Validated SARS logbookTransaction, fuel supply and inventory records, packaged for submission every month
Immutable audit logEvery correction logged against the original transaction
Fully traceable. Every figure drills back to its originating pump transaction, and every correction is logged against the original.
Recovery
Recover the litres you are already entitled to
The highest eligible claim is not an inflated claim. It is the full value of the litres you are already owed, once the gaps that keep them out of the claim are closed.
Proven on live data
In a reconciliation of a primary haul fleet at a large South African open-pit mine, SmartDRS™ found that under-allocation outweighed over-allocation by roughly five to one, and that the misallocation was concentrated in a short, investigable list of units. Every case carried its originating transaction number, bay, pump and time stamp.
ExceptionWhat SmartDRS™ doesClaim treatment
Fuel used but booked to another assetFinds the matching over-allocated asset and proposes a re-allocationRecovered into the claim once re-allocated
Fuel booked but not usedPairs with the under-allocated asset and corrects the bookingRemoved from the wrong asset, so the claim is not exposed on audit
Fuel with no matching workTraces the session and flags it for investigationHeld out until substantiated
Unallocated or lost fuelIsolates and reports it by station and pumpExcluded and reported as a loss
Metering or bay faultReports it by station and pump for corrective actionCorrected where data allows; otherwise excluded
Deliverables
What you receive every claim cycle
- Validated SARS transaction logbook, approved by you and packaged for submission
- Qualifying versus non-qualifying litres summary, by site and fleet
- Exception and re-allocation register, with the source transaction for every correction
- Data quality and completeness report
- Access to the fuel auditing and allocation application and Power BI dashboards
- Logbook data in your preferred format, exportable on demand
ECS Recommended System
Bring all your equipment into your claim with SmartFEMS™ and SmartDSM™
SmartDRS™ is the reconciliation and SARS reporting service. Together with SmartFEMS™ and SmartDSM™, it forms the ECS Recommended System for diesel refund optimisation.
SmartFEMS™
The fuel data backbone: clean, authenticated fuelling transactions and inventory records that feed straight into the SmartDRS™ reconciliation.
Fuel Management System
SmartDSM™
Captures the work done by support and contractor equipment with no production system or telematics, so its eligible diesel can be claimed too. SmartDSM™ feeds that work data straight into the SmartDRS™ reconciliation.
Mining Fleet ManagementPricing
How much does SmartDRS™ cost?
SmartDRS™ is delivered as a monthly managed service. Pricing depends on the size and complexity of your operation, and we provide a tailored quote after a short data review.
Get a custom SmartDRS™ quoteWhat affects your quote
- Number of sites and fleets in scope
- Fuel management and operations data sources to integrate
- Once-off data pipeline integration and transformation
- Logbook format and reporting requirements
What is SmartDRS™?
SmartDRS™ is the ECS Smart Diesel Refund Services. It reconciles every litre of diesel against the work it performed, per asset and per refuelling event, every month, and produces a validated logbook ready for submission to SARS.
Who qualifies for the SARS diesel refund?
Operations that use diesel in qualifying primary activities: agriculture and forestry, mining (on land and offshore), fishing, offshore and harbour shipping, rail freight, and electricity generation. Only diesel used by eligible equipment for a qualifying activity can be claimed, and every litre must be supported by records. Read how agribusinesses are bringing fuel accountability to the farm, and how mining operations can manage a rising diesel bill.
What records does SARS require for a diesel refund logbook?
SARS expects you to trace every litre from purchase to eligible use: the quantity purchased, where it was stored, how much was dispensed, the equipment it was used in, the qualifying activity performed, the split between qualifying and non-qualifying use, and a complete audit trail. Monthly storage and usage logbooks are becoming the standard.
Do we need new hardware or a new fuel management system?
No. SmartDRS™ reads from your existing fuel management system, fleet, operations or telematics systems and asset register. No field hardware or operator data capture is added. Where equipment has no activity data, SmartDSM™ can be added to close the gap.
Does ECS submit the claim to SARS?
No. You remain the claimant. ECS delivers the validated logbook and claim pack, and your team approves and submits it.
What makes the logbook defensible?
Every litre is traced from bulk receipt through storage and dispensing to the specific asset that used it, linked to the work that asset performed, and classified as qualifying or non-qualifying. Every figure drills back to its source transaction.
Will SmartDRS™ inflate our claim?
No. SmartDRS™ recovers litres you are already entitled to but cannot currently prove, and removes litres that are booked to the wrong asset. Fuel that cannot be substantiated is held out of the claim.
Which equipment can be included?
Any asset that uses refund-eligible diesel for a qualifying activity, such as mining fleets, tractors and harvesters, locomotives, vessels or generators. Equipment without telematics, including contractor machines, can be brought in with SmartDSM™.
How does SmartDRS™ prepare us for SARS Modernisation 3.0?
SmartDRS™ already works at the level the new dispensation requires: monthly, asset-level records, maintained asset and storage registers, and a configurable rate table for levy changes.
How long does it take to get started?
The first claim cycle includes the data pipeline and transformation set-up. Later cycles run on the established reconciliation.
What format is the logbook delivered in?
The format is agreed with your tax team before the first logbook is finalised, and data can be exported on demand.
Get started
Ready to claim every eligible litre?
Book a consultation with an ECS diesel refund specialist. We will review your fuel and operations data and show you where your claim is falling short.