Software for certification bodies: the operator, the audit, the balance and the invoice

01Operators, applications and offers

• An operator register with certificates per standard, the scope per season, and a risk level
• Operators imported in bulk from Excel or CSV, with validation and a template
• Applications with a fee quote and an offer as a PDF; accepting the offer creates the operator
• The annual contract as a PDF from the accepted application
• A one-page operator file per season

02How are audits planned and reviewed?

• Audit planning by cycle — stage 1 and 2, surveillance and renewal — with a calendar
• Auditor qualifications per standard; an auditor cannot be booked on two overlapping audits, and an assignment with a conflict of interest is blocked
• Checklists generated from the standards library, with your own added items and progress
• Findings, each closed by its corrective action
• A technical review that must be done by someone other than the auditor, then submission to the granting body and its decision recorded
• The audit report as a PDF that can be emailed
• Samples and lab results: a positive result blocks the operator until it is released
• Measures and sanctions, and a register of complaints and appeals

03Grower groups and internal control systems

• Group members, internal inspections, the season opening and the visit plan
• The re-inspection sample size worked out from the number of active members and the risk factor, with a suggested sample
• A shipment certificate is blocked for a group whose internal inspections are incomplete

04Balances, declarations and shipment certificates

• An organic balance ledger per operator, product class and season: approved against remaining
• Periodic quantity declarations reconciled against the system's own figures, then accepted or rejected
• A shipment certificate request with automatic checks, a separate approval step, and issue with its TRACES reference; revoking it restores the balance
• A sheet of the TRACES boxes ready to copy. Entry into TRACES itself stays manual

Certificates are issued by the granting body. Mizan records each certificate's number, dates, file and status, and stops a request that the certificate does not cover.

05Fees, invoices and late payers

• A fee schedule with versions: rates per standard and class, fixed fees, a minimum, and quantity tiers
• Invoices per request, per audit, annual, or batched monthly, with payments, PDF and email
• The granting body's cost per invoice line, so each invoice shows its profit
• Daily dunning in five levels, from a reminder to a hold on new certificates
• Egyptian e-invoice preparation: pre-validation, the export file, and the recorded reference with a link to the tax portal. Signing and upload are done outside the system
• A dashboard and reports: revenue, cost and profit by granting body, standard and client; auditor workload; expiring certificates; open findings

06What does the operator see?

• The operator answers findings, fills in declarations and requests a shipment certificate from his own side, and receives your invoice in his own inbox
• When the operator also runs his factory on Mizan and agrees to link it, you get a live read-only view of his production, farm book, purchases and stock
• An oversight portal for outside bodies, where the company grants access by scope and sees who entered and when

07The mass balance and traceability panel

A separate panel with its own sign-in, where each operator keeps his flows under the certification body's eye, with roles for the body's administrators and reviewers scoped per operator.

• Suppliers approved with their certificate, standards and estimated harvest
• Goods receipts with a 15-point checklist, accepted, held or rejected, and capped by the estimate or the season's quota
• Processing with an expected yield and a tolerance; a result outside the range needs a written justification
• Sales only under the standards the lot actually carries, and a certificate that is not valid on the date blocks the sale
• Sales between operators arrive as the buyer's receipt
• Every document goes through draft, submission, and approval or return with a note
• A season cannot be reopened with an unexplained gap: the operator explains where the quantity went, and the body accepts or rejects it
• Reports: mass balance with gap flags, expected against actual, goods flows, stock by product, and inspection priorities by risk score
• Traceability backward and forward across operators, searched by invoice, certificate or export lot, as a PDF
• Alerts before a supplier's or an operator's certificate expires

This panel works in Arabic, English and German, with a user guide inside it.

08Which standards are in the library?

Organic: EU Organic, USDA NOP, Canada COR, JAS, Naturland, Bio Suisse and Demeter. Food safety and others: FSSC 22000, BRCGS, IFS, ISO 9001, GLOBALG.A.P., Halal, Kosher, Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and FairWild. Each has its requirements, its quantity basis and its validity period, and you can add your own checklist items.

09Is it used for real, and how do I see it?

Yes. Mizan runs live for a certification body, alongside the herb and spice exporters it also serves, with each company's data separate.

mbsystems, a software company founded in 2013 in Vienna, Austria, with offices in Vienna, Cairo and Muscat. We write the systems ourselves, so a change a customer needs is a change we make.

Ask for a demonstration on your own operators and standards: info@mbsyss.com, or Cairo +20 100 520 5900, Muscat +968 7277 7269, Vienna +43 681 8411 0547. The price is given as a quote for your company.

• Mizan for herb and spice exporters
• Mizan for factories
• Every field we build a system for