Case study
A freight business where every shipment file reaches the books.
Smart Logistics and Services moves goods through ports, customs, warehouses and trucks in Cameroon. We built Praxis LS, the system that runs that work and keeps its accounts under OHADA, in English and French.
- Client
- Smart Logistics and Services
- Sector
- Logistics and freight
- Country
- Cameroon
- System
- Praxis LS
- Stage
- Live
What they needed
The business already ran its freight work on an older system. That system had no accounting layer, so its costs and invoices never reached the books on their own, and its screens were in English only, in a country that works in French and English.
It needed one system for the whole shipment file: the quotation, the customs and transport steps, the warehouse, the trucks, the people, and accounts kept under SYSCOHADA, the OHADA accounting standard.
What we built
Praxis LS is organised around the shipment file. Each area below is part of the same system, with the same records and the same permissions.
-
Operations
- Shipment files and their milestones
- Transit orders and delivery notes
- Shipment tracking for clients
-
Commercial
- Leads and proposals
- Quotations that clients accept and sign online
- Costing for each file
-
Warehouse
- Goods received
- Locations and stock
- Goods out
- Stock counts
-
Fleet
- Vehicles and their renewals
- Maintenance
- Fuel
- Drivers and incidents
-
People
- Contracts
- Clock-in, leave and allowances
- Payroll
-
Finance
- Proforma and final invoices
- Receivables
- Purchase orders matched to goods and supplier invoices
- Fixed assets
- A calendar of tax filings
-
Records
- An archive for every document
- Electronic signatures
- Documents verified by QR code
What holds it together
One general ledger under SYSCOHADA. Invoices, file costs, purchases and payroll post to it as they happen, and the year-end statements are drawn from it.
How it runs day to day
One shipment, from quotation to the books
- A client asks for a price. The quotation goes out from the system, and the client accepts and signs it online.
- The shipment file opens. Its milestones follow the goods through the port, customs and delivery, and the client can follow them too.
- Costs are recorded against the file as they arise, including cash advanced to staff in the field.
- The warehouse and the fleet record their part: goods in and out, the truck, the driver and the fuel.
- The invoice is raised from the file, and every amount posts to the general ledger.
- Finance reconciles each file’s costs with its invoice and closes the month from one set of books.
What changed
-
Accounting at the core
The old system had no accounting layer. Now invoices, file costs, purchases and payroll post to one OHADA ledger as the work happens.
-
English and French
Every screen exists in both languages, and the search finds a page, a tab or a record in either.
-
Tax deadlines that remind people
Filing deadlines are generated from each tax registration, assigned to the person responsible, and announced well before they fall due.
-
Tested before it ships
Every change passes automated tests before release, and staff can practise in a separate test environment without touching live records.
Our role
-
See
We studied the existing system and how the teams used it, and kept a record of what worked and what did not.
-
Design
We wrote the functional specification and the accounting rules with the client: the chart of accounts, the posting rules, the roles and the approvals.
-
Build
We built Praxis LS in stages, accounting first, so the business never had to switch everything over at once.
-
Hold
We run the system, release improvements continuously and keep a written record of every change.
Related work
-
Pixie Girl Global
One platform for a hair brand that makes, imports and sells: costing, stock, online shop, deliveries, people and accounts.
-
An FMCG distributor in Cameroon
The distributor’s ERP, rebuilt while it stayed live: orders, deliveries, returnable containers, fleet, payroll and OHADA accounts.
Start with one area of your organisation.
The free audit and demo takes about an hour. We look at how one area runs today and show you what a system like these would change.