You have found a ready-made program that seems to do what your business needs — accounting, a point of sale, stock, production, a store. You want to buy it and start using it, without discovering in a year that your data is hard to get out, the price has doubled, or the support you were promised does not exist. That is what this article is for: the terms to settle before you sign, and how to check each one.
It assumes you have already chosen the program. If you are still choosing, comparing business software on evidence comes first, and what business software really costs over five years covers the budget. If you are still deciding whether to buy at all, how to decide between Odoo and a custom system is the place to start.
Your data: who owns it, and how you get it out
This is the term that matters most and is read least. The software belongs to the vendor; the data you put in it should belong to you. Check that the contract says so, then check what that means in practice.
- Export. Can you export all of your data — not only reports, but customers, products, transactions, attachments — in a standard format such as CSV or a database dump? Ask to see it done during the trial.
- At the end. What happens to your data when the subscription ends? How long do you have to take it, and in what format? When is it deleted, and will they confirm the deletion?
- Hostage risk. If you stop paying, do you lose access immediately, or is there a period in which you can still read and export?
A useful test: imagine the vendor disappears next month. Could you still run your business from what you can export today? If the answer is no, you are depending on the vendor more than the contract suggests.
Where your data lives, and the law that applies
Business systems hold personal data: employees, customers, suppliers' contact people. In Egypt, the Personal Data Protection Law, Law No. 151 of 2020, regulates how personal data is collected, processed and kept, and places conditions on transferring it outside the country. You do not need to be a lawyer to ask the right questions.
- In which country are the servers, and who operates them?
- How does the vendor handle personal data under the law that applies to you, and will they put that in the contract?
- Who at the vendor can see your data, and is that access logged?
- If there is a breach, how quickly will they tell you?
Where the answers matter — for example, if you hold health or financial data — have the contract reviewed by a lawyer who knows the law.
The price, after the first year
The price on the page is the price today. What you want to know is the price in year three.
- Renewal increases. How much has the price risen at renewal in the past, and does the contract cap future increases?
- Minimums and commitments. Is there a minimum number of users, or a commitment to pay for a year even if you leave after three months?
- Currency. If you are billed in dollars and earn in pounds, your cost moves with the exchange rate.
- What grows the bill. Adding users, a branch, a warehouse, storage, transactions. Get the price of each in writing.
Service levels: what "support" actually means
"Support included" can mean anything from a phone answered in an hour to an email answered in a week. A service level agreement turns it into numbers.
- Availability. What percentage of the time is the system promised to be up, measured over what period, and what do you receive if it is not? Note that planned maintenance is usually excluded — ask when it happens.
- Response times. How quickly will they respond to a problem that stops your business, and to a minor one? Response is not resolution; ask about both.
- Hours and language. During which hours, in which time zone, and in Arabic?
- Channels. Phone, WhatsApp, email, a ticket system? Who do you call when the ticket system itself is down?
Local requirements are not a detail
A program built elsewhere may do everything well except the things only your country requires.
- E-invoicing and e-receipts. If you are registered for tax in Egypt, the system must work with the tax authority's e-invoicing and e-receipt systems. "We support e-invoicing" covers several separate obligations; what an accounting system actually has to do for e-invoicing in Egypt lists them.
- Arabic. Check printed documents — invoices, delivery notes, receipts, labels — not only the screens. Right-to-left layout often breaks on paper first.
- Payments. If it is a store or a point of sale, check which local payment methods and gateways it actually connects to; taking payments online in Egypt and the Gulf explains the options.
Security you can ask about without being an expert
- Are there automatic backups, how often, for how long are they kept, and have they ever been restored in a test?
- Can you require two-step login for your users?
- Can you control what each user can see and do?
- Is there a log of who changed what?
Customisation and upgrades
If you will need changes the program does not offer, ask who makes them, who owns them, and — most importantly — who pays to carry them through the next upgrade. Changes that break at every new version turn a one-time cost into a permanent one.
Try it before you commit
Ask for a trial on your own data, with the people who will use it, for long enough to run a real week or a month-end. Ask whether the first contract period can be short, or whether there is a way out if the system fails to do what was agreed in writing.
A checklist to take to the vendor
- The contract says our data belongs to us.
- We have exported a full copy of our data during the trial.
- We know how long we have to take our data after cancelling, and in what format.
- We know where the servers are and how personal data is handled.
- Renewal increases are capped, or we know their history.
- We know what adds to the bill, in writing.
- Availability and response times are in the contract, with what happens if they are missed.
- Support hours and language suit us.
- E-invoicing, Arabic printed documents and local payments have been tested, not just promised.
- Backups, two-step login, permissions and a change log exist.
- We know who maintains any customisation through upgrades.
- We have a way out if the system does not do what was agreed.
The next step
Send that checklist to the vendor and ask for written answers. A good vendor will answer quickly and specifically; vague answers are the most useful information you will get before signing. If the program you want fails the parts that matter most to you, Softwiro can tell you whether a system built for you would be worth it — including when it would not.
Sources
- Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020 (Arabic text) — Personal Data Protection Center, Egypt.
- Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020 (English translation) — Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt.
- Cloud Security Guide for SMEs — European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). Exit plans, backups in a standard format, and service level agreements.
- The cloud security principles — UK National Cyber Security Centre. What to check when choosing a cloud or software-as-a-service provider.
- Codes of conduct on cloud switching and data portability — European Commission.