The daily problems this covers
Many SACCOs keep member ledgers and accounts apart, then spend days reconciling them. Daily collections are hard to match to members. Loan decisions depend on one person's memory. Navigate keeps one record for each of these and shows where the ledger and the books disagree.
1. Setting up
The module opens for an organisation registered as SACCO / cooperative with Accounting. The rules are settings, not fixed in code.
- Groups: branches, stages and routes, with their levy and collectors. A collector sees only their own group's members.
- Products: membership fee, share capital, deposits (BOSA), savings (FOSA) and welfare, each with its own ledger account.
- Loan products: reducing or flat rate, amounts, term, daily to monthly repayment, multiple of deposits, guarantors, fees and penalty.
- Roles: SACCO manager, member services officer, credit officer, credit committee, treasurer, collector and auditor.
2. Members
Register members one at a time or import your register from Excel. Active members receive their compulsory accounts and a member number. Status changes, such as suspended, dormant or exited, go through an approver with a reason. Exiting needs loans settled first.
3. Collections
The same reference is never taken twice. Mistakes are reversed by an approver with a reason, not edited.
- M-Pesa (Kenya only): members pay your Safaricom paybill with their member number as the account. A receipt follows on its own. You can also send a prompt to a member's phone.
- Banks: a bank with a collections API can send payments to the address Navigate gives you. Help articles name Equity Jenga, KCB Buni and Co-op Bank Connect as examples.
- Cash or bank deposit: apply automatically in your set order, or split it yourself.
- Exceptions: a payment with no matching member waits in unallocated member receipts until someone assigns it.
4. Loans
An application shows the eligibility checks and the cost before it starts. Guarantors are added, each within what they can still guarantee. The credit officer appraises, then as many approvers as the amount needs approve. Nobody approves their own entry. The offer can be printed, and the loan is disbursed by M-Pesa, bank, cash or to savings.
- Payments apply oldest instalment first: penalty, fees, interest, then principal.
- When a loan is fully repaid, it closes and the guarantors are released.
- For example, a transport SACCO might set a daily-repayment product for riders, with two guarantors and a multiple of deposits.
5. Asset finance
A SACCO can finance motorcycles and tuk-tuks through approved suppliers. The flow runs from quotation and deposit, through loan approval and supplier payment, to handover with chassis and engine numbers, registration and insurance. Documents are released when the loan is repaid.
6. Withdrawals and reports
Available money is the balance less the minimum kept, amounts waiting to be paid, and for deposits, what is pledged as a guarantor. Amounts above your limit need another person to approve. Reports include loan portfolio and portfolio at risk (PAR), member balances, collections by channel, ledger against books, and key ratios such as capital and liquidity. The statement of financial position and profit or loss are in Accounting.
Where Navigate may not fit
- There is no member app, member portal or USSD service.
- There are no ready-made regulator return forms. Check your own reporting duties.
- M-Pesa paybill and prompts work only in Kenya, in Kenya shillings.
- Bank collections depend on your bank giving you API access and adding the address.
- Help material describes full transport operations, such as riders and vehicles by stage, as a later release. Do not plan on them today.
- There are no ATM or card channels for members. Test the module against your own rules before you move your register.
Frequently asked questions
Can a SACCO outside Kenya use Navigate?
Yes for members, savings, loans and the books. But M-Pesa paybill and prompt collections use Safaricom in Kenya shillings. Elsewhere, you would record cash or bank receipts, or connect a bank collections API if your bank has one.
Does Navigate produce regulator returns?
It produces the reports and ratios you would work from, but it has no ready-made regulator return forms. Which ratios and minimums apply depends on your SACCO's category.
Can members see their balance on their own phone?
No. There is no member app, member portal or USSD service. Staff print or save the member statement as a PDF.
How is interest worked out?
From the loan product, on a reducing balance or flat basis. Interest is recognised in the books when it is paid, and the offer shows each instalment and the total to repay.