Textile and garment ERP in Morocco: cost per piece, production and workforce payroll

CMT or full package: two businesses, two ways of costing

From Tangier to Casablanca by way of Fez, many factories work for European brands under one of two models. In CMT (cut, make, trim) subcontracting, the customer supplies the fabric and often the trims: the factory mainly sells sewing time. In full package, the factory buys fabric and accessories itself, carries the stock and finances the cash gap, but keeps a better margin if it costs accurately.

Either way, negotiation comes down to a few centimes per piece, lead times are short and headcount moves with orders. A few extra centimetres of fabric per piece or forgotten cutting waste, multiplied by thousands of pieces, is enough to turn a profitable order into a loss. In CMT work, your bill of materials only contains what you supply yourself: thread, labels or packaging depending on the contract.

• Price per piece negotiated to the last centime
• Cutting waste that varies with the style and the marker
• Short lead times set by the brand
• Headcount that rises and falls with orders

The material cost of a polo shirt, worked out before you quote

A style's bill of materials lists fabric, thread, buttons, labels and packaging, with a waste rate on the fabric. Example for a polo shirt: 1.35 m of fabric per piece with 6% cutting waste, or 1.431 m consumed, at 32 DH per metre; 0.024 of a thread cone (about 120 m of a 5,000 m cone) at 17 DH per cone; 3 buttons at 0.35 DH; 2 labels (brand and composition) at 0.45 DH; one individual polybag at 0.35 DH. Material cost comes to 48.50 DH per polo, of which 45.79 DH is fabric.

To answer a request for 1,200 polos, the factory adds its own estimate of labour and workshop overheads, here 21.50 DH per piece, for a full cost of 70.00 DH. With a 15% margin on that cost, the price quoted is 80.50 DH excl. VAT per piece, or 96,600 DH excl. VAT for the order. SOGESTIO supplies the material share from the average cost of your stock; sewing time remains your estimate, which you then compare with actuals through cost accounting.

Waste matters: without the 6%, fabric would be costed at 43.20 DH per piece instead of 45.792 DH, a gap of 3,110.40 DH on the 1,200 polos.

Manufacturing orders per customer order and per style

Each customer order becomes one or more manufacturing orders, one per style. Before cutting starts, SOGESTIO compares the components needed with the stock available: if you are 300 metres of fabric or some buttons short, you know before the line stops. Requirements planning does the same across all open orders and tells you what to buy.

On completion, fabric and trims leave stock according to the bill of materials and the finished pieces enter stock at the actual cost consumed. If real cutting waste exceeds the planned rate, the fabric stock count reveals it, and you correct the bill of materials for the next orders and quotes.

Two limits to know: SOGESTIO has no size-and-colour grid, and it does not schedule sewing lines or machines. If you need stock by size or colour, each variant is created as a separate item. The software covers production management: bills of materials, orders, stock, cost and requirements.

A large workforce: contracts, alerts and leave

A garment factory often employs several hundred people on different kinds of contract. The HR module records permanent (CDI), fixed-term (CDD), ANAPEC, internship and temporary contracts, and alerts you before a contract or trial period ends so the decision is taken in time.

Leave and absences are counted in working days, Monday to Saturday, excluding fixed-date public holidays. The paid-leave balance follows the usual legal rule: 1.5 days per month of service, plus 1.5 days per 5 years of seniority, capped at 30 days. Leave requests go through the approval workflow; for special cases, check with your legal adviser.

Payroll for hundreds of employees without losing a week

Payroll produces payslips with CNSS, AMO, income tax and seniority for the whole workforce. The payroll entry is posted automatically, the preparatory DAMANCOM file is used for the CNSS return and the preparatory 9421 statement is transferred into SIMPL-IR. Figures should still be checked by your payroll lead or accountant before filing.

A point often misunderstood: a plan's user count is the number of people who log in to SOGESTIO (management, HR, stores, accounting), not the employees you pay.

Foreign brands: documents, exemptions and UBL

Quotes, invoices and delivery notes are generated in English, French or Arabic with your logo, which makes life easier with a Spanish, French or British buyer. An exempt rate (0%) is available for transactions that qualify, to be confirmed with your accountant.

SOGESTIO exports validated invoices in the structured UBL 2.1 format (with ICE, IF and RC), which prepares the move to the e-invoicing system announced by the DGI. If your business is split across several companies, for example a manufacturing company and a trading company, the Groupe plan manages each separately with a consolidated view.

Which plan for a garment factory?

Production, purchasing, HR and payroll are included in Pro, at 449 DH/month or 4,490 DH/year excl. VAT, for one company and up to 10 users. Groupe, at 990 DH/month excl. VAT, includes three companies, up to 30 users and consolidation. For a site that wants to keep its data on its own premises, the On-premise edition installs on your server, on quotation. The 14-day free trial needs no bank card and no commitment.