Issuing Bill of Lading

Bill of Lading or B/L is one of the transport document that is issued by a carrier or their agent or forwarder. Bill of Lading is the title documents that pointing the owner of the goods and each shipment by sea will has a Bill of lading. You can find the rule for Bill of Lading in UCP. Today the latest version of UCP is UCP600.

Before Bill of Lading is issued up, shipper will send a shipping booking or shipping instruction to forwarder or sometimes directly to shipping line. On the shipping instruction sheet shown the shipment data that will be used by forwarder for booking the space in a vessel. The fastest on sending this shipping instruction will keeping you on getting the space in a vessel more possible. The contents of a B/L will follow to the data stated on the sipping booking. Mostly, shippers send the proforma shipping booking which is containing an estimation only. Then in the event that the shippers have finished their production they will send the final shipping booking or final data to be inputted to the bill of lading by forwarder. The sending of this actual data commonly do on the injury time or close to the closing time of sending data. But, of course, sending the final data earlier is the better, especially for shipment to Japan. At this time our forwarder asked us to send the final data far away from the closing date, because if the shipment data is missing it can makes the container will not be loaded to the vessel.

The types of bill of lading that I have ever used are consisting ocean bill of lading, non negotiable sea waybill, and surrendered bill of lading. For exporting to Europe Union, the importers mostly use ocean bill of lading or bill of lading and Forwarder Cargo Receipt. 

Buyers or importers from Japan are usually use the surrendered bill of lading. They actually don't need an original bill of lading once they do the clearance of the goods, because the surrendered B/L that is sent by email or fax  is enough to do the clearance. I think the surrendered B/L is suitable for shipment from Indonesia to Japan that having about ten days sailing date, this short sailing date will take to a problem if they request an original bill of lading, because shippers need several days at least seven days to get the original bill of lading, possibility goods arrived before buyer getting the bill of lading from shipper, then the additional fee of storage will coming up to buyer.

Bill of lading contents :

• Shipper. Shipper will arrange the shipment booking and provides the data for each shipment and shipper also collecting all shipping documents to pass away to buyer or consignee.
• Consignee. Consignee is party of receiver for the goods that are shipped. Occasionally, the transport documents will be sent to them for clear the goods.
• Notify party. This party of bill of lading may same with consignee or sometimes is different with consignee. 
• Vessel name and its voyage. This will be shown on the forth column. For exportation to far away from Indonesia that the port origin is Indonesia, for instance to Europe or USA, two vessel will be typed on bill of lading, because the shipment used two vessel, first vessel is used from Indonesia to transit port and the second vessel is used from transit port to final port.
• Mark or shipping mark, container number and its seal. These data is showed at behind the left of the description of the goods. For LCL shipment type the container number and its seal data will be provided by consolidator of forwarder as the stuffing or loading the goods to the container do by consolidator or forwarder. Differently, FCL shipment, shipper will arrange the loading of the goods to the container, so that the container and seal number are provided by shipper. The shipping mark is always provided by shipper.
• Description of goods. Buyer will provides the description of goods for each order. This usually can be found on purchase order sheet.
• Nett weight and gross weight. Shipper will provides both data and pass to forwarder or shipping line to insert to bill of lading.
• Total container number and size and type.
• Place and date of issue. This date is usually same with the boarding date, but sometimes both date of issue and boarding date are different.
• Type of movement. This data are refer to loading type to the container. CFS/CFS movement will be shown if in one container consists two or more shippers and consists two or more buyer are included. CY/CY movement, means that in one container is used by one shipper only and containing one buyer. CFS/CY, if this type movement is showed on a bill of lading, means that the container are containing two or more shipper and only one buyer is included.
• Freight payable at. This is pointing to who is obligated to pay the freight.

All above data types have to follow instruction from buyer or the Letter of Credit.
 

Creating an Invoice

Shipper will creates an invoice based on the agreement prior to orders are putted to them. If buyer decided the term of shipment they wanted is " payment before shipment date and after inspection" In this case the invoice will be issued by shipper after inspection date and the payment should be received by them then they will directly arrange the exportation to destination as agreed. One of our buyer decided the payment term is on documents against payment , this mean the invoice will be performed once the goods were already been exported and after all documents required are completely provided then they will send the invoice along with the other documents to bank for arranging the payment.

The contents of an invoice that I ever made up as follow:

• Beneficiary. This party are commonly issue the invoice to be performs to buyer and also beneficiary as receiver of the payment from buyer.
• For account and risk of Messrs. This party is destination of the invoice performed. Commonly buyer are stated as to be this party. But sometimes buyer has decided the other name and address to be filled in this space. 
• L/C date, its number and the issuing bank. If the term payment are stated on L/C, those information are always stated on the invoice created up.
• Inconterm. This column will be filled in by FOB, FCA,C&F, CIF, Ex-work or others terms based on  both parties shipper and buyer agreed.
• Information of the carrier or vessel. Exportation from Indonesia to Japan is almost using direct vessel, so that the vessel is only one stated on this column. Differently, Exportation to Europe or USA is always has the vessel transits in Singapore or Malaysia, so that the vessel will be showed on the invoice are containing two vessels.
• Shipment route. The shipment route is consisting Port of  Loading, Port of transit, Port of discharge, and Place of Delivery. If the shipment is using direct vessel, the port of transit wouldn't be showed up. The shipment date is also showed on this column
• Consignee and applicant, Some buyer also decide to ask shipper to mention the consignee and notify party as showed on its B/L.
• Description of goods. The description of each goods are commonly mentioned on the purchase order, for instance " Ladies pullover 100% acrylic". A description of goods are consisting design or product name and composition.
• Style and order number. An order usually has an order or purchase order number and style number for identification purpose. So that the style and order number are very important things to be mentioned on each shipping and financing document as an identity of each order are putted to shipper.
• Color name and number. The color name and number are always mentioned on each invoice. Sometimes the difference color will leads to difference price of each color.
• Size. Mentioning size of each product in invoice is a must, because each size range usually has a specific price. The baby size will be different with the boy size, because material consumption for each size range will be different.
• Quantity of product. Quantities have to be performed on the invoice to calculate the total amount of each color, size, and all total quantities to be delivered to.
• Unit price. Of course, the unit price should be showed on each invoice to calculate the total amount to be paid by buyer.
• Total amount. The total amount of each shipment will be mentioned on the invoice. This is sometimes followed by total amount in words.
• Total quantities. Commonly, the total quantities are mentioned on invoice to show buyer what the actually quantities to be exported to them.
• Total box, the nett weight, gross weight, and its volume.Those information is not only important for buyer, but this is also using on the clearance process.

All those invoice contents are very important to give an attention when we are willing to create an invoice. And the correct contents will lead buyer can easily to process the payment, identification and of course, for the clearance the goods in customs.

In case you have an exportation of salesman to France, now customs will check the price once upon the exportation and payment process. It is a must to mention on both invoice for customs and payment in the same price. Our buyer in France reminded us to do this, because if this is not followed will leads to the penalty applied to buyer.

For all the above things, you have to contact constantly buyer regarding of invoice they want to create up. So that they can protect any unwanted thing happened to them. 

Packing List

A packing list performs a list of the goods or a products that is packed with a packing method. Packing list commonly is created on spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel or any others. Sometimes buyer has decided the format of the packing list in their shipping manual to be used to each their order they have. If buyer doesn't has a certain format of packing list, shipper will makes a draft to propose to buyer for getting their approval including the content of each shipment.      

Now, some buyers have an online shipment system in a single window. They manage their orders by online system. Starting they put an order to a shipper till the goods are delivered of received by their warehouse, all these are recorded on their online system. Once shipper has finished produce their order, shipper submit the order data to be shipped out to the system covering quantity to be shipped out, the total packaging, the color, its nett weight and gross weight, packing method, and the shipment mode. Then the shipping marks and packing list will automatically created by system based on shipper data submitted to.

The packing list will be passed to buyer and bank in original, and it stated also on the first number of packaging, and occasionally the forwarder request the packing list to shipper, too. 

All contents on packing list stated are should be avoided from wrong. If found the wrong of the contenta it will become a big trouble and sometimes it will affect to the discount or penalty are coming to shipper. We have ever got some penalty because of this wrong thing. For several years ago our buyer from France has decided that the packing list should be written manually by hand. Of course, this is will becoming a big trouble when we don't have spare time to do this, because the closing time for cargo loading almost going over. Sometimes we didn't double check to the packing list we created up according to the short time to send the goods to the consolidator of the goods.

In addition, if we made a wrong content to the packing list and this has arrived in buyer hands or their agent, the extra handling can not be avoided. Then the additional handling fee in destination will born to shipper account.