Commercial invoice

Domestic truckload freight rarely carries a commercial invoice. Imports and exports always do, and it is the document customs brokers, forwarders and importers spend the most time reconciling.

What customs reads from it: the parties (seller, buyer, and the importer of record if different), the Incoterm that says who pays for what leg, the currency, and for every line the description, quantity, unit value, total value, country of origin and HTS classification. Duties are calculated from those lines, so an invoice that disagrees with the packing list on quantity, or with the bill of lading on gross weight, gets an entry held until someone explains the difference.

The commercial invoice, the packing list and the ocean or air bill of lading are the three documents that describe the same shipment three ways: by value, by count and by carriage. Keying them into an entry system by hand is where most brokerage back-office hours go on imports, and the line items are where errors hide. When these documents are read automatically, the first check worth running is the simplest: do the three totals agree.