Landed cost

What an import really cost is not the supplier’s price. Freight, insurance, the forwarder’s fee, the port, the customs duties, the truck to your warehouse and the bank’s fees all come on top, on invoices that arrive over weeks, some in dollars or euros and some in dinars. Added up, they are the landed cost of the goods, the figure you price from.

Beelocity keeps those invoices on the import dossier they belong to, as its charges. Each one is converted to dinars when you save it, so the dossier always says what the import has cost so far. When the figures are complete, you post them, and your stock carries what the goods really cost.

What goes into a landed cost

A charge is anything you paid to bring these goods to your warehouse. Pick its Kind of charge. The dossier offers only the kinds its terms allow, and three are always in dinars:

• Freight: the carriage to the place of discharge, by sea, air or land, when your Incoterm leaves it to you: under EXW, FCA, FAS or FOB. Under the other seven the supplier paid it and it is in the goods’ price, so it is not offered.
• Insurance: the premium for the goods in transit. An importer who insures a sea or air shipment insures it with an insurer approved in Algeria, so it is entered in dinars.
• Forwarding: the forwarder’s or customs broker’s fee.
• Port and handling: discharge, handling and storage at the port.
• Customs duties and taxes: what customs liquidated, such as the customs duty and the solidarity contribution, without the import TVA. Paid to customs, so in dinars. When you record the dossier’s customs declaration, these charges are made for you, one per duty, each spread over the goods of its own article: type them by hand only on a dossier with no declaration recorded.
• Domiciliation tax: the tax on the bank domiciliation, paid at the tax office in dinars. An import for your own needs, rather than for resale, does not pay it, and neither does a dossier exempt from domiciliation: neither is offered it.
• Inland transport: the truck from the place of discharge to your warehouse.
• Bank charges: the bank’s domiciliation, commitment and transfer fees for this purchase.
• Other: anything else that brought the goods here, such as a laboratory analysis or a conformity inspection.

Two things are never a charge, because you get them back:

• The TVA you recover. Enter every invoice without it. The import TVA customs collects and the TVA on a forwarder’s invoice are deducted on your TVA return, so they are not part of what the goods cost.
• The advance on profits tax customs collects on goods for resale. It is credited against your profits tax.

Leave out penalties too: a customs fine, or the shipping line’s charge for a container returned late. They pay for a delay, not for bringing the goods here.

Record a charge

1. Open the import dossier, then its Charges tab.
2. Press New. Pick the Kind of charge, and write a Description that says what the invoice is for, such as Sea freight Shanghai–Algiers.
3. Under Billed by, pick who sent the invoice: the shipping line, the forwarder, the port, the insurer or the bank, set up as a partner like any other. Leave it empty for customs or the tax office. Add the Invoice number as printed.
4. Enter the Invoice date, the Currency and the Amount, without the TVA you recover. A credit note from the forwarder is entered as a negative amount. For customs, the domiciliation tax and insurance, the Currency is your base currency, already filled in and closed.
5. Leave Apportionment basis on Value unless the charge follows the quantity of goods (see below).
6. Press Save.

The charge’s page then shows, under In the base currency, the Exchange rate it was converted at and the Amount in base currency — for a charge in a foreign currency; a charge in dinars converts nothing and shows neither. The Charges tab lists every charge of the dossier with both figures, and a charge is corrected or removed from its own page.

A dossier keeps taking charges after it is closed, because the last invoices often arrive after the goods are in. A cancelled dossier takes none.

A dossier that holds a domiciliation tax cannot then be made exempt from domiciliation, and one that holds freight cannot move to an Incoterm under which the supplier pays the carriage: the message names the charges to remove first, from the Charges tab.

The exchange rate a charge is converted at

A charge in dinars is itself, and is asked for no rate. A charge in a foreign currency is converted when you save it:

• By default, at the rate on file for the invoice date: the most recent rate entered for that currency on or before that day, on the currency’s Exchange rates tab. No rate on file means the charge is refused until you enter one.
• At the rate on the invoice, if you type it in Stated rate. The rate must sit within five per cent of the rate on file for that day, either way, which catches a rate typed with a digit too many while leaving room for a bank’s spread.

The charge keeps the rate it was saved at. If a rate on file is corrected later, open the charge, press Edit and Save, and it is converted again.

How charges are spread

A charge is paid for a whole shipment, but each product received carries its share. The Apportionment basis says how the share is decided:

• Value: each product carries a share in proportion to its value in dinars. Freight, insurance, customs duties and fees follow the value of what they carried, so this is the default.
• Quantity: each product carries a share in proportion to the quantity received. Use it for a charge billed per package, such as handling, when the products’ prices are very different.

A quantity counts as written on the receipt, whatever its unit. If one product is received in kilograms and another in boxes, spread the charge by value.

Read the landed-cost sheet

Open the dossier’s Landed cost tab. Above the table:

• Goods value: what the goods received are worth in dinars, at the supplier’s price less its discount.
• One figure for each kind of charge the dossier has, such as Freight or Port and handling.
• Landed cost: the goods and every charge together.
• Coefficient: the landed cost divided by the goods value. A coefficient of 1.3261 means each dinar paid to the supplier cost 1.3261 dinars once the goods reached your warehouse; multiply a supplier’s price by it to know what an item really costs you.
• Goods rate: the exchange rate the goods are valued at (see below).

The table has one row for each product received, with its Lot, Quantity and Goods value, its share of each kind of charge, its Landed cost and its Unit landed cost, the landed cost of one unit. Every figure is worked out again each time you open the tab, so a charge added this morning is already in it.

The sheet waits for the goods. Until a goods receipt of one of the dossier’s orders is completed, the tab says that nothing has been received yet. If a charge is spread by value and the goods received so far have no price, the tab says so: spread that charge by quantity, or price the order’s lines.

Until you post the sheet, your stock keeps the cost each receipt put into it: the supplier’s price at the receipt day’s exchange rate.

State the goods rate

By default, each product received keeps the exchange rate its goods receipt was converted at, so the sheet’s goods value is exactly what your stock holds. Your accountant may prefer to value the whole import at one day’s rate, such as the day the goods shipped or the day the customs declaration was registered.

1. On the Landed cost tab, press State the goods rate.
2. Enter the Rate date, and Stated rate appears beside it. Leave it empty to use the rate on file for that day, or type the rate you want, within five per cent of it.
3. Press State the goods rate.

Every line is valued again at that rate. The tab then shows Goods value at the receipts’ rates beside the new Goods value, so you see how far the two are apart. To go back to the receipts’ rates, open the dialog again, clear the date and confirm. A dossier in dinars has no goods rate to state.

Finalize the sheet

When the last invoice is in and the goods are all received, freeze the sheet so its figures stop moving:

1. On the Landed cost tab, open the status above the summary, which reads Draft, and choose Final.
2. Enter the day the figures were complete under Finalized on. It is today unless you change it, and it cannot be later than today.
3. Press Finalize.

The sheet now reads Final. Its figures are kept exactly as they were at that moment: a charge can no longer be added, corrected or removed, and the goods rate can no longer be changed.

A final sheet prints. Download landed-cost sheet or Print landed-cost sheet, on the dossier’s page, gives the paper your accountant files. Its header writes the Incoterm with the place the rule names: under FAS and FOB the dossier’s Port of loading, as in FOB Shanghai, and under CFR and CIF its Port of discharge. Under the other rules it writes the rule alone, because their place can be the supplier’s works or your own warehouse.

To correct a final sheet, choose Draft from its status and confirm. The figures follow the charges and the receipts again, and you finalize the sheet once more when they are right. The status’s history says who finalized and reopened the sheet, and when.

A sheet cannot be finalized while one of the dossier’s orders still has goods to receive, while nothing has been received, or while a charge cannot be spread. While an order is still waiting, Final is greyed out in the sheet’s status, and resting on it names the orders.

Post the landed cost to stock

A final sheet says what the goods really cost. Posting it puts that cost into your stock, so a sale, a delivery or a transfer of these goods carries their landed cost from then on, and the margin you read off a sale is a real margin.

1. On the Landed cost tab, open the status above the summary, which reads Final, and choose Posted.
2. Enter the day under Posted on. It is today unless you change it, and it can be neither before the day the sheet was finalized nor later than today.
3. Press Post the landed cost.

Every lot the dossier’s receipts created takes its share of the charges, wherever its goods now are: on the shelf in any warehouse, set aside in quarantine, or on a transfer between two warehouses. Goods on a transfer reach the other warehouse at their new cost when the transfer is received.

Some goods may already have been sold or used before you posted. They have left your stock, so their share cannot be added to it. The sheet keeps it apart instead. After posting, the tab shows, for each product and in total:

• Posted to stock: what was added to the goods on your shelves.
• In transit: what was added to the goods on a transfer.
• Variance on goods already gone: the share of the goods already sold or used. It is not a loss: it is part of what those goods cost, and your accountant books it as such.

The three add up to the sheet’s charges, to the centime.

A late invoice after posting

An invoice that arrives after the sheet was posted still belongs on it.

1. Choose Draft from the sheet’s status and confirm. Your stock stays exactly as it is.
2. Add the charge on the Charges tab.
3. Finalize the sheet, then post it again.

The second posting moves only the difference: the new charge, spread the same way, onto the goods still in your hands, and its share of the goods gone since into the variance. The figures on the tab are the total of every posting, and the status’s history says who posted the sheet, and when.

What the app refuses, and why

• A charge of nothing. Enter a credit as a negative amount.
• A foreign-currency charge with no exchange rate on file for its invoice date or before. Enter the rate on the currency’s page first.
• A stated rate more than five per cent away from the rate on file. Check the rate on the invoice, or correct the rate on file.
• A charge on a cancelled dossier.
• A kind the dossier’s terms rule out, such as freight under CIF or a domiciliation tax on an import for your own needs, and customs, the domiciliation tax or insurance in another currency than your base currency.
• A goods rate more than five per cent away from the rate on file for its day, or a rate with no day.
• Changing a charge or the goods rate on a final sheet. Reopen it first.
• A Customs duties and taxes charge typed by hand on a dossier whose customs declaration is recorded, and changing or deleting a charge a declaration made. Reopen the declaration instead: its charges change with it.
• Finalizing a sheet while an order still has goods to receive. The message names the orders: receive them, or close or cancel them.
• Posting a sheet on a day before it was finalized.
• Posting a sheet whose goods receipt was cancelled after it was finalized. The message names the receipt: reopen the sheet and finalize it again, so its figures follow what was really received.
• Any charge, when your organization has no base currency yet. Set it in your organization’s settings first.