Commercial Invoice
A Commercial Invoice will be issued when the goods are ready to deliver and all the charges have been taken into account. This is an obligatory document in both of the customs (origin & destination) by which the customs will be informed of the type of goods, the price, and the specifications. The contents of this document are almost as same as the Proforma Invoice, but here the contents cannot be edited to send to the buyer and all the final agreements have been done before.
Commercial Invoice does not impact a company’s situation in Tax organization or any other economic department and it has issued only for a foreign buyer. Nowadays because of sanctions a third-party company that works outside of Iran must issue this document which will be recognized as the seller in documents; in this case, related banks will not encounter Iran’s name in documents.
The important point here is that the invoice issued for the buyer and the invoice for customs clearance is not the same, but no need to worry the important matter for customs is to check the specifications of the mentioned cargo which is going to be sent to the named destination.
Commercial Invoice & Packing List simultaneously issued and the invoice number should be mentioned on the packing list. A main difference between these two documents is that the price should be written down on the invoice but it is not required on the packing list; notice that the goods specifications should be the same on both documents.
There is a significant difference between Proforma Invoice and Commercial Invoice; on a proforma invoice an expiry date could be seen and after that date, a new proforma invoice will be issued for any new agreement; but on a commercial invoice all items are finalized without an expiry date and nothing could be changed.
Putting a person’s name in the buyer section of a commercial invoice is not common because of tax issues and mostly a company name will be mentioned. Sometimes the buyer will bring forward another company’s name to put on the buyer section – maybe a third party or subordinate company – for announcing to customs; in a case like this, it is suggested that you clear all the mutual accounts and then deliver the goods.
If the buyer uses the Letter of Credit (L/C) method then the issuing bank will be mentioned in the buyer section and the document is of a high value in the final account clearance; in case of any wrong information on the invoice the payments will not be done and buyer will face problems in L/C release. Basically, at first, the reimbursing bank will notice any failure in the commercial invoice.
The information on the seller section should be by the payments account’s information; vice versa the money transfer will not be done.
Bill of lading’s number, ship name, or even information like loading and delivery times could be added on the instructions part (both on the invoice and packing list) which proves a professionally documented invoice.
In case some extra charges are burdened by the seller (like port charges, or loading and stowage charges) which is out of its responsibility, then they could be mentioned in the other charge section; this kind of agreement should have already been finalized by both parties.
In the details section (which may be known by titles like other terms/please pay to/ information) some required information for the payment is entered such as the following: account No. and account name, address, and information of the reimbursing bank and swift code. The bank account information should be as same as the seller’s information and other third-party accounts cannot be mentioned.
For more information please call our office.