Business Process Consultant, Egypt

E-invoices and e-receipts as steps someone owns

The Egyptian Tax Authority's systems for electronic invoices and receipts have changed what happens after a sale for many companies. Most discussion focuses on the technical connection. The process questions get less attention, and they determine whether the finance team spends its mornings firefighting.

I settle these with finance, sales and operations before any system change:

• Timing: is the document issued on dispatch, on delivery or on customer acceptance, and does that match the contract and the customer's expectations?
• Master data: who creates and changes item codes, units and customer tax details, since errors there are a frequent cause of rejection.
• Rejections: who reviews each rejected document, who corrects the underlying data and how quickly it must be resubmitted.
• Corrections: when a credit note is used, who approves it and how it links to the original document.
• Signing: who holds signing authority, and who covers when that person is away.
• Reconciliation: who confirms each month that accepted documents agree with the ledger before the VAT return.

Which transactions are in scope, and the content each document needs, sits with your tax advisor. I make sure their guidance is assigned to a named person at a defined step. The technical connection belongs on my Egypt integration page.

Installment sales and post-dated checks

Real estate developers, car and equipment dealers and some durable goods sellers in Egypt sell on installments, often backed by a schedule of post-dated checks collected at contract signing. That creates a long-running process with many handoffs, and a weak point at each one.

I map the cycle with sales, contracts, treasury and collections:

• How the installment schedule is agreed, approved and recorded, and who may change it later.
• How checks are received and logged against the schedule, who signs for them and where they are held.
• Which treasury role batches maturing checks for deposit, and how clearing is verified on the statement.
• The response to a bounced check: customer contact, any late charges your contract allows, and escalation to legal follow-up.
• How early payments, rescheduling and cancellations are approved and reflected in the schedule.
• How the remaining check portfolio is reported to management and reconciled with the ledger.

The redesign usually separates custody from recording, adds a regular count of checks held against the register, and gives collections a clear view of what is due. Contract terms and legal steps belong to your lawyers; the process simply ensures their instructions are followed and leave a record. For the sales side of the same customers, see the CRM consultant page for Egypt, and for sector background, real estate ERP.

Import purchasing for plants and traders

Many Egyptian manufacturers and traders depend on imported materials and goods. Procure to pay for imports involves more parties and documents than local buying, and the timing between order, payment and arrival can be long. Process gaps here show up as stock surprises, costing errors and disputes over who approved what.

I map import purchasing end to end and agree:

• Who raises the requirement, who approves the purchase and at which value bands.
• How foreign currency for payment is requested and approved, and how the payment method, such as a letter of credit or a bank transfer, is chosen and documented.
• Who tracks the shipment and collects shipping, insurance and clearance documents, and when they reach finance.
• How goods are received and inspected at the plant or warehouse, and how shortages or damage against the order are resolved.
• How landed costs, including freight, duties, clearance fees and bank charges, are gathered and allocated, and who confirms the final cost.
• How tax deductions on supplier payments are applied, as your tax advisor directs.

For local purchasing, the same map covers quotation rules, purchase orders before commitment, receiving at plants and three-way matching. The output is an approval matrix and procure-to-pay design that management signs. Customs, tax and banking specifics are for your advisors and bank; the process makes sure each is handled by the right person on time. See procurement automation for how this later translates into system controls.

Repricing and costing when the pound moves

When the exchange rate moves, Egyptian companies face a burst of decisions: which price lists to revise, which open quotations to honor, how to cost stock bought at the old rate and how to explain margin changes to management. In many firms these decisions are made informally, by message, and the results differ from one salesperson to another.

I design a repricing process with clear governance:

• Trigger: what kind of cost or rate movement starts a review, as defined by finance.
• Analysis: who calculates the effect on cost by product group, and from which data.
• Decision: who approves new prices, and who decides on open quotations and contracts.
• Communication: how the new list reaches sales, branches and distributors, and from which date it applies.
• Exceptions: who may grant old prices to a specific customer, with a record of why.

On the costing side, I map how standard or average costs are updated, who approves the update and how management reports separate the effect of the rate from operational changes. Accounting policy, including how stock and foreign currency balances are valued, is for your accountant and auditor. The process ensures their policy is applied the same way every time. More on reporting in two currencies is on multi-currency ERP.

Head office, plants and procedures people follow

Egyptian companies headquartered in Greater Cairo with plants in the industrial cities, or with branches across governorates, face a familiar problem: the paperwork that drives costing and stock arrives late. Goods receipts, production reports, scrap records, stock counts and expense slips are prepared on paper, signed and stamped, then carried to headquarters as weekly or monthly bundles.

I map what each location produces, which documents head office truly needs, and how they travel. The redesign typically sets a cut-off per period, a numbered register so missing documents are visible, and a named person at each site responsible for complete submission.

Procedures are written for the person doing the work: a page per role with the main steps, the exceptions and the person to ask. Your team prepares Arabic versions for plant and branch staff, and I keep the English master current. Each process has an owner who approves changes and reviews the process when products, sites or regulations change.

Only after this does system selection make sense. Each map supplies demo scenarios, signing limits translate into configured approvals and every control point gets a test script, as described on my ERP business analyst page for Egypt. If the next step is removing repetitive work, see my automation page for Egypt.

Delivery is remote; site visits happen only by arrangement, and no vendor pays me anything. The method is on business process consulting; the Egypt hub covers everything else.