Packing Lists and Commercial Invoices That Clear First Time

Ask an experienced export clerk which documents cause the most trouble and the answer is rarely the bill of lading. It is the commercial invoice and the packing list — the two documents everyone assumes are trivial, and the two that a customs officer, a bank examiner and a buyer's accounts team all read closely.

This guide sets out what each document must contain, and the errors that send a shipment back to be redone.

The commercial invoice: what it must say

The commercial invoice is the customs value document, the payment demand and the accounting record, all at once. Every field matters.

The packing list: the physical shipment document

The packing list describes what is physically in the boxes. It is what the warehouse counts, what the forwarder weighs and what the destination customs uses to verify the invoice.

• Carton or pallet numbers, in sequence
• Contents of each carton — item, quantity, unit
• Net weight and gross weight per carton, and in total
• Dimensions per carton, and total volume in cubic metres
• Marks and numbers as they appear stencilled on the box
• Handling notes: fragile, this way up, keep dry
• For mixed shipments, a summary by item across all cartons

Where a container holds several items, a matrix of carton numbers against items is worth the extra page. It resolves in seconds what a phone call to the factory takes an hour to answer.

The five mistakes that cost the most

1. Invoice and packing list disagree on weight. Customs treats this as a signal that something is misdeclared. Make one person responsible for both documents.
2. Incoterm omitted. Without it, nobody knows whether freight is inside the value, and the assessment becomes a negotiation.
3. Carton count differs from the bill of lading. The carrier counts what it loads; if documents say otherwise, release is held.
4. Currency conversion done informally. If you invoice in one currency and declare in another, state the rate and the date used.
5. Revisions not reissued. A corrected invoice must carry a revision number, or the file has two conflicting versions and the officer picks the wrong one.

Presentation details people forget

• Use the same company name across all documents — the registered legal name, matching your export registration.
• Keep the address format consistent between invoice, packing list and certificate of origin.
• Sign and stamp originals when a letter of credit or a buyer requires it; scans do not always satisfy either.
• Number the pages of multi-page documents and make the totals page obvious.
• Where goods are shipped under several invoices, list every invoice number on the packing list.

A short pre-shipment checklist

The cost of getting these right is an afternoon. The cost of getting them wrong is a demurrage charge, a refused letter of credit, or a buyer who decides to source elsewhere. If your shipments are containerised, the CBM calculator also helps you check the volume on your packing list against what actually fits.