What Should You Include In Your Export Invoices?

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If you want to do international trades, your export invoice must be very strong as it is one of the predominant documents in international businesses. Many agencies of freight forwarders, transport, insurances, international bankers, and customs must scrutinize export invoices before doing business.

The invoice gives you the complete highlights of the export transaction you have made until the last day. It also gives valuable inputs for the government to take a call on your final customs duties and taxes. 

If you require complete details of sales contracts, you will easily get it from the invoice and provide the same information to the third party.

But here, you need to take note that information that includes an invoice somewhat differs from county to county.

You need to be very careful while entering the details in your export invoices. Here, in this article, we will guide you on “What are the essential elements that are needed to be included in your export invoice and how to fill an export invoice carefully.”

 

Get Your Documents In Place : An Import Export Documentation Checklist

 

Here is the list of elements you need to be careful of while preparing your export invoices.

 

1 Address: – It is one of the most important elements where common people make small errors. No matter which kind of business you are in, your address is your main identity. While doing export business, you must mention “India” with your exporter address, which many of you may leave it missing. You need to carefully mention the details of goods originally manufactured and the country where goods need to be reached.

2. Buyer & Seller: – After mentioning the proper address, you need to mention the details of the buyer and seller carefully and correctly to avoid errors in the export process of goods. As per the contract of the two business parties, appropriate details need to be there in the export invoice.

3. Consignee Column: Whom the consignment is shipped out must be mentioned carefully and correctly. In every export process, these details might vary from time to time. There is one thumb rule, and if you are doing export business, you must be aware of the buyers and receivers of the goods. In some of the cases, the buyer and consignees are different. In such cases, you need to mention the details of both buyers and consignees in the export invoices.

Let’s understand it with an example – The buyer might be from a different county than the receiver of the goods. Like you buy the goods from Australia to send them to your friend living in the USA.

 4. Pre-Carriage: – It gives you clear information about the mode of cargo movement to the port of loading by the shipper. Pre-carriage can be anything from Road/Rails/Air/See.

5. Port of Loading: – It is one of the crucial columns in the exports invoice. It gives you the information of the place where goods will be loaded. It can be either a seaport or an airport, where you wish to load your goods.

6. Port of Dispatch: – The place where goods will be unloading is one of the important details of the export process, and you need to be careful with this. You must mention it carefully without making errors.

7. Port of Discharge: – Port of discharge gives you the proper details about the port where your goods are unloaded from delivering it to the buyer’s place, i.e., mode of unloading.

You need to fill in these details very carefully; interchanging can mislead the export process. Also, you need to mention the ICE number in the Port of Discharge column. We repeat here again that be careful while mentioning the details of the county of origin and last destination of the goods.

Note: – These details will be more important in the landlocked situation. We all know that goods need to pass by many countries to reach their destination nowadays.

Example: – If you need to send some goods from India to Kenya, your goods need to pass by three different countries like Mombasa, Uganda, and Kenya. In such a scenario, details of FOB and CIF are very important, and also you need to mention discharge port details accordingly.

8. Marks/Quantity Column: – You surely need to mark your product to make the work of intermediaries easier. Yes, it is upto the buyer whether you want to mark your product or not, but it is an essential detail in the export invoice.

Also, other details like the serial number of cartons and values(quantity) of cartons and packages must be mentioned in the export invoice.

9. Description: – HS code of the products and description must match each other. The buyers and sellers will give HS code. Each product must have an HS code.

10. Incoterms Terms:– Incoterms standards are identified by an International chamber of commerce, it used worldwide in export business contracts for the sales of goods. Details of Incoterms in invoice clearly show who is responsible for the transporting cost of goods.

11. Payment terms: – In the export Invoice, you must need to mention the payment terms. Mostly there are 5 types of Payment terms are used in the export business.

• Open Account
• Documentary collection
• Letter of Credit
• Cash in Advance
• Consignment

Here, payment needs to be done based on the condition of each payment term.

12. Bank Details: – This is one of the important details of the invoices as when you do the export business, at the time of payment two companies from various countries need to convert the currency. And here, the bank has a role to play to convert the currency to the one they prefer.

13. Mode of shipment: – Without fail you need to mention the mode of shipment for your good, which makes the export process very smooth.

 14. Currency: – Last but not least, very important details of the export invoice. These details need to be mentioned in the invoice in a convertible way. You need to mention it in dollars and the convertible currency amount.

Conclusion:

Concluding all of these, export invoice needs to have the total value mentioned and signed by authorized and concerned signatories. We being a top-notch import export agency suggest you contact the experts so you do not make mistakes in the export invoice. If you are not sure whom to contact for such kind of help, we can help you. Impexperts can take care of all these concerns and help you avoid the possible mistakes in your export invoice. Give us a call or shoot an email, we are ready to help!