Business management software and ERP for Ouarzazate businesses

Ouarzazate: cinema, desert and solar power

Ouarzazate holds a special place in Morocco's economy. Its studios and landscapes have hosted international film shoots for decades, supporting a whole ecosystem of services: transport, lodging, catering, set building, equipment hire and extras. As the gateway to the desert and the Drâa and Dadès valleys, the city also lives from tourism, around the ksar of Aït Benhaddou, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and its kasbahs. The Noor solar complex, one of the largest in the world, and local products such as Kelâat M'Gouna roses and dates complete the picture.

Servicing film shoots has its own rules: short, intense projects, mostly foreign clients, tight budgets, costs incurred in the field by several people and locations with no signal. A spreadsheet is not enough to stay in control.

One shoot, one project: quote, deposit and balance

In SOGESTIO, each production becomes a project with its amount, costs and invoicing. The quote goes out in English, French or Arabic; the production company accepts it online from the client portal, with name, time and IP address recorded; the deposit and then the balance are invoiced on the same job.

Example: a three-week logistics service is quoted at 300,000 DH excluding VAT, with a 50% deposit on signature, so 150,000 DH excluding VAT, and the balance at the end of the shoot. The VAT treatment of a service invoiced to a foreign production company depends on the nature of the service: have it confirmed by your chartered accountant before setting the rate.

• Amount, costs and invoicing tracked per production.
• Deposit and instalments on the same job.
• Supplier purchases, equipment hire and subcontracting attached to the project.
• PDF quotes and invoices with logo, bank details and QR code.
• Days sales outstanding and overdue list per customer.

Production budget: know where the money goes

On the Pro and Group plans, each production can also be a cost centre with a budget per line. Example: 90,000 DH planned for transport, 70,000 DH for catering and 60,000 DH for lodging, 220,000 DH in total. If actual spending reaches 236,000 DH, SOGESTIO shows a 16,000 DH overrun and points to the line concerned, while the shoot is still under way.

The result per cost centre then shows what each production really earned: 300,000 DH invoiced against 236,000 DH of costs leaves 64,000 DH before overheads. Comparing productions with one another helps you adjust future quotes.

On set: expense claims, petty cash and approval workflows

Location managers, drivers and crew chiefs advance costs on site: fuel, meals, small equipment. Each files an expense claim that the manager approves; it is then posted as an expense and marked as reimbursed. Cash outflows go through petty cash, and large expenses follow an approval workflow by amount threshold, with delegation possible and no self-approval.

On an isolated location, the Android app and the web app installed on iPhone keep working offline to view data and enter expenses, quotes, draft invoices and payments; everything syncs when the network returns, and legal invoice numbers are assigned by the server at that point.

Southern tourism, major sites and local products

Kasbah hotels, tour organisers and tourist transport firms invoice agencies and tour operators, often in English, with deposits and balances. SOGESTIO handles this business-to-business invoicing; it is neither booking software nor a cash register. Providers working under contract at the region's major sites, upkeep, cleaning, maintenance, use recurring invoices and payroll with CNSS, AMO and IR.

Units that process roses or pack dates can describe their recipes as bills of materials, with their losses, and track their products by batch, from harvest to sale.

An online service, from town to film locations

SOGESTIO has no office in Ouarzazate: it is an online service available anywhere in Morocco, in French, Arabic or English, and setup is remote, with customers and items imported from Excel. A company that prefers to keep its data on site can install the On-premise edition on its own server, through Docker or a Windows installer, with automatic backups.

The 14-day free trial needs no card. The Pro plan, with projects, budgets, expense claims, banking, accounting and payroll, costs 449 DH/month or 4,490 DH/year excluding VAT, for one company and up to 10 users.