Written from building and running systems in production: the problems factory floors actually have, how to compare, price and buy business software, and how a software company wins its work.
How to use Softwiro's free MCP endpoint: connect it in one command, check it with curl, and run a real calculation on the gym memberships template.
A free Excel gym memberships sheet: plans, members, subscriptions with end dates, payments, attendance, a renewal list and a monthly summary. Also works online.
A free Excel beauty salon sheet: services price list, staff commissions, a bookings log, today's list with revenue and a monthly summary. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for a tutoring center: groups, students, attendance, monthly payments, who has not paid, teacher pay as a share of collections and a monthly summary. It also runs online.
A free Excel sheet for broiler cycles: feed, mortality, weights, sales and expenses logs, with mortality %, cycle profit, cost per kilo and a summary across cycles. It also runs online.
A free Excel sheet for a farming season: plots, expenses by item, sales, and per plot the profit, cost per feddan and cost per kilo, with a season summary. Also works online.
A free Excel wedding and event budget sheet: suppliers with agreed prices, deposits and balances, due dates, a guest list with replies and tables, and a summary. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for car rental: cars with insurance and licence dates, bookings with deposit and payments, overdue returns, maintenance and the net per car. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for vehicle fleets: fuel and maintenance logs, kilometres, cost per kilometre, litres per 100 km, last service and a list of expired or expiring papers. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for freelancers: projects, hours, invoices, payments, what clients owe, work not invoiced and monthly income. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for purchase orders and suppliers: orders, receipts, payments, late deliveries and an aging table of supplier debts. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet that logs a charity's donations, disbursements and beneficiaries by code, and produces a one-page monthly transparency report and a year summary. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for trip, umrah, flight and hotel bookings: price, cost, commission, payments, balance, travel alerts and a follow-up list. Also works online.
A free Excel laundry sheet: price list, orders log, balance per order, late-pickup alerts, a follow-up list and a monthly summary. Also works online.
A free Excel dental clinic sheet: treatment plans, sessions, payments, balance per patient, plans needing an appointment and a monthly summary. No diagnoses stored. Also works online.
A free Excel school timetable: classes, teachers, a log of periods, teacher and class clash detection, quota counts, empty slots and printable grids. It also runs online.
A free Excel exam schedule: classes, committees, invigilators, a log of exams with clash and capacity flags, invigilation counts and a per-date summary. It also runs online.
A free Excel sheet for teachers: homework by class, a submission log, simple behavior notes, delivery rate per student, assignment and class, and a follow-up list. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for school bus subscriptions: lines and drivers, subscribers, monthly payments, arrears to date, free seats with a full-bus alert, and a follow-up list. Also works online.
A free Excel GPA calculator for the American diploma: courses by year with credit, type (regular, Honors, AP) and letter grade, unweighted and weighted GPA per year and cumulative, with an editable points table. Works online too.
A free Excel IGCSE tracker: subjects with papers and weights, mock marks, target and predicted grade, and the points still missing. Grade boundaries are editable examples; check the board's official boundaries. Works online too.
A free Excel log for IGCSE past papers: average per subject, first 3 versus last 3 attempts, trend, and your most frequent error types. It also runs online.
A free Excel planner for AP, SAT and ACT: exam dates you enter, practice tests against a target, weekly planned versus actual study hours, and days left. It also runs online.
A free Excel sheet for Al-Azhar students' marks: religious, Arabic and general subjects with editable maximums and weights, year work plus final exam, totals, percentages, grades, a second-round list and class ranking. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for Quran teachers: a log of memorization and review sessions with from/to positions, faces and ratings, totals per student, an overdue-review alert and a follow-up list. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for university applications: local and overseas, deadlines you enter, a document list per application, fees per currency, days left and late alerts. It also works online.
A free Excel gradebook for teachers with editable weights for homework, quizzes, projects and the final: weighted total, percentage, grade, class statistics and a list of students at risk. It also works online.
A free Excel sheet for teachers: subjects and classes, your own units and lessons with planned and taught periods, coverage per subject, late-against-plan alerts and short prep notes. Also works online.
A free Excel log for teachers: contacts with parents by student, date, means and topic, follow-up dates, overdue alerts and a summary per student and topic, with no sensitive data. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for remedial sessions: students and reasons, session log, score before and after, improvement, students who did not improve and a per-subject summary. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet to track leads and deals: stages, value, next follow-up, weighted value, an overdue list and a funnel summary by stage and source. Also works online.
A free Excel payroll sheet: employees, attendance, advances and deductions, net pay for the month you choose, a print-ready statement and a cost summary. Also works online.
A free Excel inventory sheet for any shop: items, stock in and out, balance and value, minimum-level alerts, a reorder list and slow-mover check. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for a monthly gamaeya: members and shares, collection order, instalment log, arrears, current-month summary and a printable statement. Also works online.
A free Excel clinic appointment sheet: patients, an appointment log priced from your price list, balance per patient, today's list, follow-ups and a monthly attendance and revenue summary. Also works online.
A free Excel recipe costing sheet: ingredients, recipes, dish cost, suggested price for your target cost percentage, margin, alerts above target and a price-rise test. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for contractors: projects, stages, expenses by item, client payments, budget alerts, expected profit and delays. Also works online.
A free Excel household budget: income, fixed and variable expenses, budget vs actual per category, savings goals and a monthly summary. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for owners' association dues: fixed or per-metre fees, payments, arrears, months late, a late-payers list, unit statements and a compliance rate. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for an owners' association: budget lines, an expenses log, dues revenue, actual versus budget, over-budget alerts and a yearly summary. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for a building or compound reserve fund: movements with a running balance, major projects, the monthly amount needed versus saved, and a coverage summary. Also works online.
A free Excel log for building or compound maintenance reports: type, priority, owner, status, days open with a late alert, an oldest-first open list and a monthly cost summary. Also works online.
A free Excel tracker for owners association contracts: cleaning, security, lift, gardens, pest control and internet, with payments, expiry alerts and a renewal list. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for owners association meetings: owners and shares, attendance, quorum against your own percentage, votes by shares and a list of decisions not carried out. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for owners' associations: split shared electricity, water, gas and elevator bills by area, equally, by household size or fixed share, with a printable statement per unit. Also works online.
A free Excel register for owners' associations: units, residents, phones, cars, stickers and parking spots, alerts for missing phones and extra cars, totals and a quick contact list. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet that turns your income and expense logs into a one-page monthly report for owners, with last-month comparison and a year summary. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for car workshops: a job order per car with labor, parts at cost and sale price, status, payments, balance per customer, parts profit and a debtors list. It also runs online.
A free Excel sheet for nursery and school fees: fees by stage, an installment plan, sibling discounts, payments, arrears to date, a follow-up list and a collection summary. It also runs online.
A free Excel installments sheet: contracts, payments, remaining balance, days late and a daily follow-up list. It also runs online in your browser.
A free Excel sheet for pharmacy stock and expiry dates: days left, status flags, stock value and a needs-action list. Dates and stock only. Also online.
A free Excel rent collection sheet: tenants, payments, balance due, months late, lease-ending alerts and a follow-up list. Also works online.
A free Excel sheet for business expenses and monthly budgets: actual vs budget by category and month, variance, over-budget flags and monthly net. Also online.
A step-by-step guide to booking a clinic appointment online in Egypt: picking the speciality and location, what to prepare, what to expect, the warning signs of a fake booking page, and how to keep your records.
A patient's guide to the electronic prescription in Egypt: what is confirmed about the national project, how to read the lines of a prescription, how dispensing is recorded, generic versus brand, and privacy.
People type "كارت صحتي", "تطبيق صحتي", "موقع صحتي" or "صحتك" and land on different things. What the names refer to, then how to build a personal medical file with emergency information and keep it private.
A decision checklist for doctors and clinic owners: booking, patient file, e-prescription, billing, multi-branch, Arabic, data ownership, cost, and what Law 151 of 2020 says about health data.
A practical sequence for clinics: the no-show formula with a worked example, online booking, stopping double-booking, reminders backed by systematic reviews, cancellation rules, and what to change first.
A step-by-step routine for a pharmacy in Egypt: record every batch, sell by first-expiry-first-out, set reorder points, count regularly, and handle expired stock and storage as the EDA and Decree 380 require.
A buyer's checklist for pharmacy software in Egypt, built from your own workflow and from what the EDA and the Egyptian Tax Authority publish, with a counter test, an offline test and questions to put to every vendor.
For pharmaceutical suppliers and distributors in Egypt: build a digital catalogue with fresh price and availability, an order flow that fits EDA distribution rules, and early visibility of what pharmacies and warehouses need.
You run delivery with your own couriers and want to know where every order is and how much cash each courier owes you. Six steps, a handover routine and a checklist for choosing a delivery app.
Track grades, attendance and behaviour in one place and keep parents informed. Data to record, early-warning signals, parent messages, Egypt's data protection law for children, AI reports as decision support, and a pilot plan.
Deciding between a software company in Egypt, a freelancer or your own developers? Six dimensions compared, a seven-question test, a worked example and questions to ask whichever you pick.
You want a due date to plan around and to know what "12 weeks" and "second trimester" mean. How the date is counted from your last period, how cycle length shifts it, why a scan may change it, and the terms doctors use.
You are trying to conceive and want the days that give the best chance. How ovulation sits in the cycle, why the day varies, what the fertile window is, signs worth tracking, and when to see a doctor. For planning a pregnancy, not contraception.
BMI is a screening number, not a verdict. Read it with your waist measure and your health history, and know when it misleads.
You need two numbers, BMR and TDEE, and an honest activity level. Then a gentle pace and a floor you do not go under.
Markup and margin are different percentages of the same profit. Worked examples, a conversion table, what a discount costs in extra volume, the effect of expiry waste, and the regulated-price caveat for Egypt.
The reorder point, safety stock by days of cover or service level, the effect of variable lead times, ABC classification, order quantity and review frequency, and a shelf-life test, all with worked examples.
Calculate the cost of missed appointments with a worked example: rate, monthly and yearly loss, recovery under reminder scenarios, the break-even rule, hidden costs and what to measure every month.
Late responses to stoppages, numbers typed twice, untraceable handovers and defects found too late: where a garment floor loses time when tracking runs on WhatsApp and an old desktop program.
An MES runs and records the work on the factory floor, between the ERP's plan and the machines. Where it sits in ISA-95, MESA's list of its functions, MES versus ERP and MRP, and how to decide if you need one.
A step-by-step method for choosing between shortlisted programs: requirements before demos, scripted demonstrations, a weighted scoring sheet, user trials and reference calls.
Per-user subscriptions, licences with maintenance, open-source editions and custom builds, plus implementation, migration, hardware, support, renewals and exit: how to build a five-year cost for each option.
Before buying a ready-made accounting, stock or production program: data ownership and export, personal data law, renewal prices, service levels, e-invoicing and Arabic documents, security and an exit.
Paying for software does not by itself make you its owner. What the contract must say about the code, what to receive along the way, accounts in your company's name, escrow and a handover test.
Orders nobody can locate, output below plan, counts that disagree, fabric that runs short, defects found too late: what each symptom usually means on a factory floor and how to diagnose yours in a week.
Line efficiency = pieces × SMV ÷ (operators × minutes) × 100. How SMV and SAM are set, where the inputs go wrong, overall against on-standard efficiency, and what to record every day.
Marker gaps, lay ends, width, remnants, splices, defects, recuts and short rolls: how to measure each fabric loss in the cutting room and reconcile fabric issued against fabric accounted for per order.
A sewing line runs at the pace of its slowest operation. How to find that operation with takt time, operation capacities and a count of waiting bundles, how to raise or protect it, and what to record.
What the Egyptian Tax Authority’s e-invoice and e-receipt systems require of a business’s software, which part of the work is a data problem rather than a software problem, and the ten questions that separate a supplier who has run this in production from one who has read the documentation.
Cards, wallets, cash on delivery and instalments each land somewhere in your operation, not only in your checkout. What the choices actually cost you in work, what a gateway integration really involves, and what changes when you sell into the Gulf as well.
A fair comparison between a ready-made ERP and a system built for you: what Odoo genuinely does well, what "customising Odoo" turns into over several years, where the package stops fitting, and a method for deciding that does not depend on whom you asked.
Referral, partnerships, outbound, content, marketplaces, events and tenders: what each channel costs a software company, when it pays, and where its ceiling sits.
"We build anything" makes the buyer imagine the fit, turns every proposal into a price comparison, and stops knowledge from compounding. The alternative is already in your delivery record.
The anatomy of a case study that closes: the situation before, the constraint, what was built, what changed, and the state the system was left in.
Most software companies give away the work that produces the estimate, then defend a number they cannot justify. Charging for scoping changes both halves of that.
Outbound usually fails in the list before it fails in the message. This is the version a technical company can run without a salesperson: fifteen to twenty researched approaches a week, and a first message under 120 words.
Most software company blogs answer questions nobody asked. What buyers actually search for, how to build one page per problem, and how to know it is working.
An inquiry arrives carrying a solution and a deadline, and no description of the business that produced them. The discovery call is where that gets corrected — or where the project ends early enough that nobody loses money.
The final invoice is paid and the account goes quiet. What happens next — a support contract, a scheduled review, a second system — decides whether the client was worth acquiring at all.
Before you sign, ask to open a system that is running today, ask who will do the work, read the exclusions, and settle ownership in writing. A buyer's guide, with a question checklist for the meeting.
Two suppliers quote the same brief and the numbers come back three to four times apart. What actually drives the cost of a custom system, and how to compare proposals without guessing.
Missed deadlines are lagging indicators. The signals that matter appear months earlier, and almost all of them are legible to a buyer with no technical background.
Softwiro builds and runs software for businesses: accounting and invoicing systems, online stores, point-of-sale and inventory, and applied AI. Most of what we publish here comes from that work, not from theory. It covers several subjects, and each post is filed under one of them.
For owners and managers of factories, garment factories especially, who want to see what is really happening on their floor. These posts start from the problem: production tracking problems and where to start, tracking on paper and WhatsApp, how production efficiency is calculated, finding the bottleneck on a sewing line, fabric waste in the cutting room, and what an MES is.
For business owners and managers who are about to pay for software and want to spend the money well. These posts cover the questions worth settling before anything is signed. How do you choose a software company, and what should you ask on the first call? Why do estimates for the same system differ so much, and what drives the cost? When is an off-the-shelf platform enough, and when does a custom system make more sense than Odoo? Some posts deal with rules that apply only in the region, such as Egypt's e-invoicing requirements for accounting systems and taking payments online in Egypt and the Gulf. Others are about protecting a project once it is under way, including the early signs it is going wrong while there is still time to fix it. And before you commit to a ready-made product, see what business software really costs over five years.
For people who run or sell for a software company, particularly a small one without a sales team. These posts follow how clients actually arrive, from where they come from to the discovery call, the proposal, delivery and the support contract that follows. They cover choosing a focus rather than competing as a generalist, turning finished projects into proof a new client will believe, pricing and writing proposals that get signed, outbound outreach that doesn't feel like spam, and being found through search when your buyers are looking for someone to solve a problem.
For patients, doctors, pharmacists and suppliers. Patients can read how to book a doctor online, how an electronic prescription works and what a health card or health passport should hold. Clinic owners can see how to choose a clinic management system and cut no-shows and phone booking. Pharmacies get guides on stock and expiry and choosing pharmacy software, and suppliers on a digital catalogue for pharmacies. Each free tool has a guide that explains it: the due date, ovulation and the fertile window, BMI, daily calories, pharmacy margin and markup, reorder point and safety stock and the cost of no-shows. Each one links to its calculator in the free tools.
For businesses that deliver with their own couriers: how to run delivery, track every order and reconcile cash on delivery.
For school owners and principals: how to track grades, attendance and behaviour in one place and keep parents informed.
Every post starts from something we have built, shipped, maintained or got wrong. We name the tradeoffs rather than recommend one answer for every business, and we write for readers in Egypt and the Gulf, where the payment gateways, tax rules and buying habits differ from the markets most software advice is written for. New posts appear here and in the RSS feed, and each one is published in both English and Arabic.
If you run a factory, start with the diagnostic guide to production tracking problems. If you are about to commission a system, start with how to choose a software company and what a custom system costs. Between them they answer the two questions most buyers bring to a first call. If you run a software company, start with where clients come from and why the generalist software house loses. The rest of the series builds on both.