Cost accounting and budgeting software in Morocco: budget, actual and profit by branch

Financial or cost accounting: two tools, two questions

Financial accounting under the CGNC, Morocco's accounting standard, is mandatory: it classifies transactions by nature (purchases, rent, salaries, sales) and leads to the balance sheet, the income statement (CPC) and the tax return package. It answers the question asked by the tax authority and the banks: how much did the company earn over the financial year?

Cost accounting is an internal decision tool that each company organises its own way. It reclassifies the same income and costs by purpose, that is by branch, shop, site or activity, and answers the owner's question: where do we make money, and where do we lose it? In SOGESTIO there is no double entry: the cost centre chosen on an invoice or expense feeds the analysis, while the CGNC accounting entry is generated as usual.

Example: budget and actual for three branches in 2025

An electrical supplies distributor runs three branches, in Casablanca, Rabat and Marrakech, each tracked as a cost centre with its own budget. The table below compares budgeted and actual results for the 2025 financial year, in DH excluding VAT. Overall the gap looks moderate: 187,200 DH below plan, or −8.3%.

The detail tells another story. In Marrakech, revenue came in 5% below budget (3,420,000 DH instead of 3,600,000 DH) and costs ran 2% over (3,121,200 DH instead of 3,060,000 DH): two modest gaps that cut the result by 44.7%, from 540,000 DH to 298,800 DH. Casablanca, ahead of its budget, hides this slide in the total. Without a result per branch, the owner would only find out at year-end closing.

Cost centres: branch, shop, site or activity

A cost centre is an analytical bucket identified by a short code, for example MAG1 or CHANTIER-RABAT. You select it on each relevant sales invoice and expense. The right breakdown depends on the question you are asking: a chain of shops thinks per outlet, a construction firm per site, a consultancy or service agency per activity.

Keep the structure simple: a few well-chosen centres beat a very fine breakdown, which multiplies forgotten assignments and makes the figures unreadable.

• Distributor: one branch or warehouse per centre
• Retail: one shop per centre
• Construction: one site per centre
• Services: one activity per centre, such as training and consulting
• Head office: one centre for shared costs

Building a monthly budget per line

The budget is entered month by month and line by line, in DH excluding VAT: sales, purchases (supplier invoices) and each expense category, such as rent, transport or marketing. An annual amount can also be spread over twelve months. You create a budget for the whole company or one per cost centre.

A useful budget starts from last year's actual figures, adjusted for what you already know: a new branch, a rent increase, new hires. It should also follow the real seasonality of the business, such as Ramadan, the summer, the back-to-school period or year-end, rather than splitting revenue into twelve equal parts.

Actual figures are calculated automatically from validated sales invoices, net of credit notes, purchase invoices and expenses, excluding VAT. Nobody re-keys numbers into a spreadsheet.

Reading budget vs actual variances and acting on them

For each line, SOGESTIO shows the budget, the actual, the variance in DH and the achievement rate, flagged as favourable or unfavourable: revenue above budget is favourable, a cost above budget is unfavourable. Total income, total costs and the result are compared with their budget.

Start with the largest variances in dirhams, not with eye-catching percentages on small lines, then look for the cause: sales volume, prices, discounts, a cost line drifting. To act before money is spent rather than after, approval workflows put large expenses and purchases through a prior decision.

Three mistakes that distort management control

First mistake: unassigned expenses. An invoice with no cost centre appears in no branch's result, which then looks more profitable than it is. Make assignment a habit at data entry, and regularly compare the company total with the sum of the centres: the difference is what was left unassigned.

Second mistake: a budget drawn up once in January and never revisited. If a branch opens mid-year or a large customer leaves, the original budget is no longer a useful benchmark: review it at least every quarter, for example by creating a revised budget alongside the original one.

Third mistake: splitting shared costs at random. Head-office rent, management and the accountant's fees serve every branch. Since each invoice or expense is assigned to a single centre, group these costs in a head-office centre and agree an allocation key with your chartered accountant, such as a share of revenue, for the analysis.

Which plan includes budgets and cost accounting?

Budgets and cost accounting are part of the accounting scope of Pro, at 449 DH/month or 4,490 DH/year excl. VAT, and Groupe, at 990 DH/month excl. VAT. In Groupe, each company has its own data, cost centres and budgets, and a consolidated view shows group revenue and cash. Starter does not include accounting. The 14-day free trial needs no bank card and no commitment.