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The commercial invoice, the packing list, the port it is leaving from and the island it is going to.

With those four we can quote the freight, estimate the duty and tell you the transit. Without the invoice we can only quote the freight, which is the smaller half of what a shipment costs.

From most Asian ports, between eighteen and thirty five days to Male, depending on whether the sailing is direct or transships at a regional hub.

We quote both where both exist, with the dates written down. Add two to four working days for clearance on a complete file, then the sailing day for your island.

Yes. Loose cargo is charged by the cubic metre or the tonne, whichever is greater, and we consolidate it with other customers at the origin port.

Consolidation waits for a load, so it is usually a week or so slower than a container of your own. For anything under about fifteen cubic metres it is still much cheaper.

Either. Plenty of customers book their own freight and use us only to clear and deliver, and that is a perfectly sensible arrangement.

Where we do the whole job you get one file and one invoice, and there is nobody to blame at the handover, which is worth something on a shipment that goes wrong.

Yes, in writing, at booking. We classify every line on the invoice and give you the figure.

It is an estimate and we say so. Our estimates have run within about five per cent on complete invoices; a vague invoice is where estimates go wrong, and we will ask you to get it rewritten rather than guess.

Three things, in this order. A description too vague to classify, a value that does not match the payment records, and a missing permit for something the importer did not know needed one.

All three are found by reading the papers a fortnight early. That is why we ask for the invoice at booking rather than on arrival.