Free Invoice Template

Invoices are significant part of any kind of business especially in trading business. These are commercial documents and are issued in order to keep record of a transaction at both seller and buyer end. You may not have fair idea about significance of commercial invoices with respect to import and export businesses. Commercial invoices are minutes of transactions between exporter and importer. This invoice is similar to an ordinary sales invoice, but some entries specific to import-export trade make it a commercial invoice.

Commercial invoices serve three basic purposes:

• They keep the record of transactions between seller and buyer keeping list of complete description and sales price of goods along with shipper’s and recipient’s name and address and if possible purchase order to reference number for transaction.
• Commercial invoices serve as foundation for overseas customs’ identification, classification, tax assessment and final approval of entry of goods. This accurate description assists accelerate clearance procedure.
• Third purpose of commercial invoice is that it confirms the value of goods or services for insurance purposes.

Commercial invoice is a fundamental manuscript in an export transaction. It covers entire information that is required to prepare other documents and therefore saying it a document of content will never go wrong. Description of merchandise in commercial document must match with description in the letter of credit. Marks and numbers on commercial invoice, insurance documents and bill of lading lists must be corresponding in this regard.

Exporter has to make invoice form to be used as there is no standard firm of commercial invoice. Some countries stipulate their own forms. In such situations, exporter has necessarily to use the form prescribed by importing country. Some of the invoices stipulated by importing countries are:

• Combined Certificate of Origin and Value (mandatory for Commonwealth countries)
• Consular Invoice (to be certified by the authorized missions of importing countries, exporter is bound to pay a stipulated fee to obtain this invoice)
• Legalized Invoice (no stipulated form is required and to some extent, it is similar to consular invoice)
• Customs Invoice (requisite for the countries for their anti-dumping action)

As far as format of an invoice is concerned, you may have obviously known about its format and therefore is not needed to be discussed here. If you want to review its format, Free Invoice Template can assist you.  Mostly, commercial invoices are also prepared following standard format of an invoice by just adding exporter-importer details. While talking about commercial invoices, Performa invoice cannot be put aside. This is a temporary commercial invoice which is used to send by the exporter to the importer. Mainly, it serves two basic purposes:

• It assists foreign buyer to get an import license if required for a particular commodity
• It assist opening a letter of credit in favor of exporter