Import dossiers

An import dossier is the folder of one purchase from abroad, the way your bank and your forwarder already call it. You open it when the foreign supplier’s proforma arrives. It holds the supplier, the currency, the terms of the sale, how the goods travel, whether they are for resale or for your own needs, and your bank’s domiciliation. As the purchase goes on, the dossier keeps the day of each step until the file is closed.

Open an import dossier

1. Open Foreign Trade, then Import dossiers, and press New. If your business has not yet said what it imports for, New opens Setup instead: say it there, then press New again.
2. The Dossier number is filled in for you, as IMP-2026-000001. It is the dossier’s own number in the app, not the bank’s. You may type another.
3. Under Parties and terms:
   • pick the Supplier. Only partners filed as suppliers are offered;
   • pick the Currency of the proforma;
   • pick the Incoterm the proforma prints, such as FOB or CIF. FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF are rules for sea transport: pick one and the Transport mode below reads Sea and cannot be changed (Which Incoterms go by sea). The place the rule names is not asked: under FAS and FOB it is the Port of loading, and under CFR and CIF the Port of discharge, both picked under Route;
   • type the proforma’s number as the Supplier reference.
4. Under Route, choose the Transport mode (sea, air, road, rail or multimodal) first, unless the Incoterm has already chosen sea. The two places the goods travel between are named for it: Port of loading and Port of discharge by sea, Airport of departure and Airport of arrival by air, and Place of loading and Place of discharge by road, rail or several modes. Each offers only the places that mode uses. In the first, type the place’s name, its code or its country, such as Shanghai, CNSGH or China, and pick it from the list, where the places are grouped by country. Do the same for the second, which offers only the places of your business’s own country, as your organization’s profile names it, and is never the place of loading. A place missing from the list is left empty and named in the Notes. Add the Country of origin when the goods are made in another country than the supplier’s, and the Carrier and the Transport document number once you know them. Free days is the number of days the shipping line lends its containers after unloading; a dossier that travels by air has no container and is not asked.
5. Fill in the domiciliation: see The bank domiciliation below.
6. Under Dates, type the Expected departure and the Expected arrival the forwarder gave you.
7. Press Save. The dossier opens as Open, with its road drawn at the top of the page.

You can change the dossier later with Edit. A forwarder often changes the carrier or the place of discharge while the goods are on their way, and the dossier should say so.

A dossier opened before the list of places shows each place as it was typed, on the page and under the field when you edit it, until you pick the matching place.

Which Incoterms go by sea

The International Chamber of Commerce writes eleven Incoterms. Seven may be used whatever the transport: EXW, FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU and DDP. Four are written for the sea: FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF, because under them the goods change hands alongside a ship or on board one.

So when you pick one of those four, the dossier goes by sea. The Transport mode reads Sea, cannot be changed, and says why under it. A place of loading or of discharge already picked for another mode is emptied: an airport is no port for a ship. Pick one of the other seven and the mode is yours again, still reading what it held.

Goods in containers handed to the carrier at a terminal are often sold FCA rather than FOB, as the Chamber advises. The app does not insist: a FOB container shipment is common and lawful.

The bank domiciliation

Before anything is paid or shipped, your bank registers the purchase and gives it a domiciliation number. A few purchases need none. The Domiciliation section opens on one question, Domiciled or exempt, with its four answers in view:

• Domiciled by the bank, which a new dossier starts on. It then asks for:
  • the Domiciling bank, one of your bank accounts. Only bank accounts are offered;
  • the Domiciliation number as the bank’s stamp prints it. You may type it with its spaces: the app keeps it as twenty-three characters, and checks that the currency in the middle of the number is the dossier’s;
  • the Domiciliation date, the day the bank domiciled the purchase;
  • the Import programme whose visa the bank domiciled it under, picked among your import programmes, the newest first. Only a programme of your business’s own kind of import is accepted.
• Exempt: under the threshold, for a value under the regulatory threshold.
• Exempt: sample or gift.
• Exempt: suspensive regime, for goods under a suspensive customs regime such as temporary admission.

An exempt dossier asks for no bank, no number, no day and no programme. Choosing an exemption takes them off the form, and saving clears whatever you had typed in them, so a dossier is always either domiciled or exempt, never both. Switch back to Domiciled by the bank before saving and they are still there.

Add the purchase orders

A dossier covers whole purchase orders of its supplier, in its currency. The orders are written and received as usual, under Purchase orders; the dossier gathers them.

1. Open the dossier and its Purchase Orders tab.
2. Press Add a purchase order, choose the order, and press Add. A draft order may be added: the dossier is often opened on the proforma, before the order is approved.
3. Do the same for each order of the purchase.

The list shows every order of the supplier. One the dossier cannot take is greyed out, with the reason beside it:

• in another currency than the dossier’s. An order that names no currency is in your base currency, the dinar, so a euro dossier cannot take it: set the order’s currency on the order while it is a draft;
• cancelled, or revised: a revised order is replaced by its revision, which is the order to add;
• already in another dossier, which the list names.

The list is read again each time it opens, so an order confirmed in the meantime is in it.

The Goods value, under Parties and terms, adds the orders up before tax and in the dossier’s currency: their lines less the discounts, plus the shipping. A cancelled or revised order counts for nothing. The figure is worked out each time you open the dossier, so it follows an order changed while the dossier is open.

The Goods Receipts tab lists the receipts of those orders as the warehouse writes them. Nothing is received through the dossier: a receipt against an order in a dossier is made like any other. And the purchase order’s own page shows Import dossier, the dossier’s number, which opens it.

While the dossier is Open, an order added by mistake comes off with Remove, in its row’s menu. The order itself is kept.

Once the dossier covers an order, its Supplier and Currency are fixed: every order in it is that supplier’s, in that currency. To change either one, remove the orders first.

The order holds them too. A draft order in a dossier can still be edited, but on its own page the Supplier and the Currency are closed, and say which dossier holds them. To give the order another supplier or currency, remove it from the dossier first.

See what the dossier draws on its programme

A dossier that names an import programme has an Import programme tab. It sets each line of the dossier’s purchase orders against the programme line it draws on:

• the Programme line, the one whose tariff sub-heading is the product’s;
• Used, the quantity ordered, in that line’s unit;
• Remaining, what the line has left once every dossier under the programme is counted, or Overrun by the excess. It is the figure the programme itself shows.

A good that counts on no line is listed all the same, with its Reason: no product, no tariff sub-heading on the product, a sub-heading the programme does not hold, or a unit that cannot be converted. What a programme has left says what to do about each. A dossier that names no programme has no such tab.

Follow the goods from departure to closing

The dossier’s road is drawn at the top of its page: Open, In transit, Arrived, Customs cleared, Closed. Each step records the day it happened, and you state that day: the forwarder’s email often reaches you a day or two after the ship sailed. It is today unless you change it, and it can be neither later than today nor earlier than the step before.

1. When the goods leave, press In transit on the road. The Mark shipped window asks for the Shipped on day and the Transport document number: the bill of lading, the air waybill or the road consignment note. The goods leave only a dossier your bank has domiciled, on or before that day, or one that states its exemption.
2. When they reach the place of discharge, press Arrived and give the Arrived on day. The free days count from it.
3. When customs releases them, press Customs cleared and give the day. The warehouse then receives the goods against their orders, like any other delivery.
4. When every order the dossier covers has been received, closed or cancelled, press Closed and give the day. The file is complete.

Hover a step of the road to read its day: the day the forwarder expects before the step is reached, the day it happened after, and who recorded it.

A day recorded by mistake is corrected with Edit until the dossier is closed. Once the goods have left, the dossier number, the supplier, the currency and the Incoterm can no longer change: your bank and customs already hold them. The route stays open, because a forwarder often changes the carrier or the place of discharge on the way. A closed or cancelled dossier keeps only its Notes open.

Cancel a dossier

A purchase that does not happen is cancelled while the dossier is Open: open the status at the top of the page and choose Cancelled. The dossier stays, with its number and its domiciliation, and its purchase orders are released so that another dossier can take them. A dossier cannot be cancelled once goods have been received against one of its orders: the import happened.

What the app refuses, and why

• A domiciliation number without its date, or a date without its number. The two come from the same stamp. The form says so on the field that is missing.
• An expected arrival before the expected departure.
• A place the transport mode does not use, such as a seaport on a dossier that travels by air, a place of discharge outside your business’s own country, or the same place twice. The form offers only the places that fit and says the last one before you save.
• A sea Incoterm on goods that travel by air, road, rail or several modes. FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF are rules for sea transport. The form chooses Sea for you, so this is only met by a dossier written some other way.
• A domiciliation number of the wrong length, or in another currency than the dossier’s. The number is either mistyped or belongs to another purchase. Check it against the bank’s stamp.
• A partner that cannot take a new document as a supplier, because it is not filed as one, or it is inactive or blocked. Put it right on the partner first.
• An order that is cancelled or revised, another supplier’s, or in another currency than the dossier’s. None of them belongs in this dossier.
• An order that is already in another dossier. An order is in one dossier at most, and the message names the dossier it is in.
• Deleting a dossier that covers orders, or a purchase order that is in a dossier. Remove the orders from the dossier first.
• A step dated later than today, or earlier than the step before it. For Mark shipped, the step before is the bank’s domiciliation.
• Goods leaving a dossier that is neither domiciled nor exempt. Record the domiciliation, or the exemption, first.
• Closing a dossier while one of its orders still has goods to receive. The Closed step is greyed out until then; rest on it and it names the orders: receive them, or close or cancel them.
• Changing what the dossier’s step has fixed: its terms once the goods have left, and anything but its notes once it is closed or cancelled.