Karisia Walking Safaris: One Platform for Bookings, Accounts, and Rota

Overview

Karisia is a walking safari operator based in Nanyuki, running multi-day foot safaris in northern Kenya and operating Tumaren Camp as the flagship property. The business has grown through a network of over 30 travel agents, but the operating system behind it is a patchwork: a safari rota workbook, a sales pipeline workbook, a client database, a safari calculator, a camp bookings visual, an accounts workbook, and a Squarespace website that cannot share data with any of them. Staff re-key the same guest between sales, accounts, and rota. Agents phone in to check availability. Monthly financials are rebuilt by hand. We signed the service agreement and invoiced the Phase 1 deposit in April 2026, and the build is now underway. The target is one PostgreSQL database behind three Filament panels: an admin panel for the directors and the sales lead, an agent panel for the 30 plus travel agents to check availability and download their own invoices, and an accounts panel for the financial lead. A Next.js site on Sanity replaces Squarespace in Phase 3. Phase 1 delivers the booking system and the agent portal so that availability stops being a phone call and quotes stop living in a calculator spreadsheet.

Key Features

• Single PostgreSQL database behind three Filament panels (admin, agent, accounts) so every role reads and writes the same source of truth
• Agent portal for 30 plus travel agents to check live tent and safari availability, submit bookings, and download their own invoices without phoning the office
• Quote engine that replaces the safari calculator workbook, with itemised pricing and PDF generation
• Financial engine that auto-populates monthly accounts columns from confirmed bookings instead of hand-rebuilding them each month
• Rota with conflict detection against confirmed bookings, so staff assignments cannot collide with guest arrivals
• Bidirectional Google Calendar sync so existing calendar habits keep working while the database stays the source of truth
• Next.js and Sanity customer website replacing Squarespace in Phase 3, with an inquiry form that flows directly into the operations platform
• 26 question process review questionnaire at kaara.works/karisia/review, used to map the current workflows before a single line of code was written
• Phased 12 week delivery where each phase ships working software, so Phase 1 alone leaves the business better off even if later phases slip