Five of these arrive without being asked for. The sixth is the one that decides whether your consignment clears in three days or twelve.
An import file needs six things. Most importers send four of them without being asked, hunt for the fifth, and have never heard of the sixth.
The commercial invoice. The real one, from the supplier, with their name and address on it, the goods described line by line, the unit prices, the currency and the terms of sale. Not a screenshot of an order confirmation and not a pro forma with an old date on it.
The packing list. What is in each carton, and the cartons numbered. This document costs your supplier nothing and it is the difference between a targeted inspection and a full one. A container of forty identical unmarked cartons with only a total weight will be opened properly, and quite right too.
The bill of lading or the airway bill. Straightforward, and the only thing to watch is that the consignee details match the importer exactly, including the spelling of the company name. A mismatch of one word is a day.
The permit, where the goods need one. Food, medicine, cosmetics, chemicals, refrigerant, radio equipment, vehicle parts and a long list of ordinary tools. The application is not slow, but it does not run in parallel with a discovery made in the yard.
The certificate of origin, where it matters for a concession or where the destination of a re shipment will ask for it.
And the sixth, which is the one nobody sends: proof of what you actually paid. The bank transfer, the card statement, the supplier's price list, the correspondence where the price was agreed. Nobody asks for this at the start and it is the single most valuable document in the file, because it is the only answer to a valuation query. We have had a query settled in four days on a price list and a transfer, and we have watched importers pay a great deal more than the difference because a genuine discount could not be shown.
Keep the sixth document for every import whether or not anybody asks for it. File it with the invoice on the day you pay, not when you are asked for it eleven months later.
And send us all six at the order stage rather than on arrival. We charge the same fee for a file read in August as for the same file read in a container yard in September. One of those two costs you storage and a fortnight.
