Private school and training centre management software in Morocco: administration and finance

A private school is also a business: what SOGESTIO covers, and what it does not

In Casablanca, Rabat or Agadir, a private school with 300 pupils invoices several hundred thousand dirhams every month and collects stacks of cheques in September. Yet the management side often lives in a spreadsheet and a binder in the front office: the day a cheque bounces or a parent disputes a month, rebuilding the history takes hours.

SOGESTIO covers exactly that side: invoicing, collections, cheques, payroll, contracts, budgets and accounting. It does not replace a school information system: no grades, no attendance register, no timetables, no parent app.

• Tuition, registration, transport and canteen billed to each family
• Back-to-school cheques presented on the agreed dates
• Arrears visible family by family
• Payroll and contracts for teachers and staff

Bill tuition every month without missing a family

Each family is a customer in SOGESTIO. Tuition runs as a recurring invoice: you set the lines, the frequency and an end date once, for example the end of June, and the invoice is generated at every due date with a number assigned by the server. Registration, school transport, canteen or supplies are added as items to the family's invoice.

Example: a school of 300 pupils with a monthly tuition of 1,800 DH bills 540,000 DH of tuition every month, or 5,400,000 DH over a ten-month school year. With 120 pupils registered for transport and 180 for the canteen, monthly billing reaches 705,000 DH. At that volume, one forgotten month for one family goes unnoticed in a spreadsheet; a recurring invoice does not forget.

On VAT, the applicable rate or the exemption is set on each item; the treatment of tuition, transport or canteen depends on your situation and should be confirmed with your chartered accountant.

Back-to-school cheques: a portfolio to track one by one

Many families hand over a series of cheques in September, often ten, one for each month of the school year, to be presented on agreed dates. With 250 families, that is a portfolio of 2,500 cheques to present at the right time. A cheque forgotten in a drawer is a month not collected; a cheque presented too early is an unhappy parent.

In the Bank module, every cheque is recorded with its number, bank, due date and status, and linked to the family and the payment. You see which ones to present this week, which are deposited, which are cashed and which bounced. Bank statements import in MT940 or CSV format for reconciliation.

A reminder: a cheque is payable on sight, even when it carries a later date. Staggered presentation rests on an agreement with the family, to be framed with your bank or adviser.

Arrears and customer portal: know which families are behind

The dashboard shows unpaid and overdue invoices, and each family record shows what was billed, paid and still due. Example: on 15 November, out of 540,000 DH of tuition billed for the month, 513,000 DH has been collected, a collection rate of 95%. The remaining 27,000 DH equals 15 monthly payments of 1,800 DH, and the families concerned are listed.

Each parent can receive a private link to a customer portal, with no account to create, to view and download invoices. A training centre that also bills companies gets its quotes accepted online on the same portal, then turns them into invoices showing the client's ICE number.

• Invoices, payments and balance per family
• Payments in cash, by transfer, cheque or direct debit
• Documents in English, French or Arabic
• Days sales outstanding (DSO) in the reports

Payroll and contracts for teachers and staff

Teachers, nursery assistants, trainers, drivers, cleaning staff: the payroll module produces payslips with CNSS, AMO, income tax (IR) and seniority, posts the payroll entry, and prepares the DAMANCOM file and a preparatory 9421 statement to transfer into SIMPL-IR. Figures should be checked by your accountant before any filing.

The HR module records contracts (permanent CDI, fixed-term CDD, internships) and alerts you before a contract or a probation period ends, which matters in June when several fixed-term contracts expire and renewals must be decided before the new term. Leave is counted in working days. Have the legal framework of your contracts reviewed by an employment lawyer.

Several campuses or a group of schools

A school with a preschool site and a primary site, or a training centre present in two cities, wants to know the result of each site. Cost centres are assigned to invoices and expenses: a monthly budget per line for each campus, budget versus actual, and a result per cost centre. When each school is a separate company, the Groupe plan manages each one with its own data and numbering, and gives a consolidated view of revenue and cash.

Which plan for a school, a nursery or a training centre?

A small language school or tutoring centre that only needs to invoice and track collections can start on Starter at 199 DH/month excl. VAT (1,990 DH/year), up to 2 users. A school or nursery that wants the cheque portfolio, payroll, CGNC accounting and a budget per campus will choose Pro at 449 DH/month excl. VAT (4,490 DH/year), up to 10 users.

A group of schools run as several companies will take Groupe at 990 DH/month excl. VAT, three companies included and up to 30 users. The free 14-day trial needs no bank card, and data entered during the trial is kept.