Producing Customs Documents

[loosemarbles]

We have long produced our Export Invoices & Packing Lists in Excel, but looking at a more grown up solution. We have used our freight forwarders to make the customs clearances so if we were able do that ourselves, an obvious saving.

Is anyone using a cloud based service to produce and/or file? We probably ship out once a day so enough to justify some investment.

[BMWM2Black]

I use Xero as an accounts package, it creates PDF Invoices which I include or upload when I am shipping overseas.

Its really good and dead easy to use.

[dirky dirk]

leave the entries to your forwarder,

import entries are a right faff and the trouble with export entries,
if they get stopped on export your freight forwarder cant sort the problem out and dealing with customs is hopeless nowadays
your better off not knowing!

[skwdenyer]

loosemarbles said:

We have long produced our Export Invoices & Packing Lists in Excel, but looking at a more grown up solution. We have used our freight forwarders to make the customs clearances so if we were able do that ourselves, an obvious saving.

Is anyone using a cloud based service to produce and/or file? We probably ship out once a day so enough to justify some investment.

My first question would be what is the source of the info for the Excel sheets? Do you have some sort of inventory / warehouse / ERP system that you're using, or is it much more rudimentary?

If you don't have much automation upstream, it is likely Excel is going to be your friend for a while longer. I'd be looking at your wider needs first - ultimately you can always bolt something like Crystal Reports (or cloudy alternatives) onto the outputs of many system to generate pretty / functional shipping documents. But it is always first about the data.

In terms of export declarations, the only driver for change is cost. Many operations will charge you a document fee + a per-line fee. If you only export a few lines / HS codes then that's not a lot; if you export 50 lines on every commercial invoice, those could rack up fast.

There are some self-serve export declaration options in the cloud. But the trouble is, they don't join up with anything else. Are you going to liaise directly with transport? What about clearance at the other end? Transport under T1 or clear at port, etc.

Having gone down this rabbit hole this year, if your freight forwarders aren't charging like a wounded rhino then I'd stick with them and let them shoulder the pain of keeping things running smoothly