12 — Run the Shipment

The deal is won — now the goods have to move. The Export Shipment is your single page for everything that happens between winning the order and raising the export invoice: the cargo, the containers, the vessel, the Bill of Lading, and the eleven documents every export file needs. One glance at its banner tells you how close the shipment is to sailing.

Before you start

• Your costing is Won — a submitted Sales Order flipped it there automatically; see Price It, Quote It, Win It.
• Purchase orders to your winning vendors are on their way — see Order from the Winning Vendors. The shipment can exist before the cargo does; its Readiness section (below) is exactly how you track that gap.

flowchart LR
    won["Won costing"] --> create["Create > Export Shipment\n(one click)"]
    create --> draft["Draft shipment\ncargo, ports, values prefilled\n11 documents added as Pending"]
    draft --> fill["Fill as facts arrive:\nvessel, BL, containers,\nshipping bill"]
    fill --> docs["Tick documents\nPending → Final"]
    docs --> invoice["Raise the export invoice\n(section 15)"]

Steps

1. Create the shipment from the Won costing

1. Open your costing from Export Costing in the workspace sidebar.
2. Click Create > Export Shipment.

This menu entry only exists while the costing's Status is Won and no shipment has been created yet — once the shipment exists, the entry disappears, so you can never create two shipments for one deal.

How you know it worked: a green alert reads "Export Shipment SHIP-… created" and you land straight on the new shipment. Back on the costing, the Export Shipment field is filled and an Export Shipment 1 connection tile sits at the top:

The new shipment is not an empty form. It arrives prefilled from the costing: customer, both ports, container type, currency, the cargo lines, the FOB / freight / insurance split of the deal value, the required tonnage and container count — and all eleven standard export documents, each set to Pending.

2. Read the header and the banner

Open the shipment (from the costing link, or via Export Shipment in the workspace sidebar). The top of the form is your cockpit:

• The colored banner always shows Documents: N/11 final · Readiness: … — red while Not Ready, orange when Partially Ready, green when Ready. If the vessel slips, "Delayed by N days" is appended too.
• Status is yours to manage: move it from Draft to In Progress when work starts, and Completed when the file is closed (Cancelled if the deal dies).
• Incoterm, ports and Container Type came from the deal — check them once, they flow onto the printed documents.
• Readiness is calculated for you; you cannot type into it. What drives it is explained in step 8.

3. Check the cargo (Items)

The Items section carries what is actually shipping. Each line came from the costing; open a row (the pencil icon) to see or correct the detail:

• HS Code and Description print on the Commercial Invoice and Packing List — fill them the way customs expects.
• Below the grid, Total Bags, Total Net MT, Total Gross MT and Total Amount (in the shipment currency) recalculate automatically every time you save.

4. Name the parties (Commercial)

Expand the Commercial section and fill Consignee Name and Consignee Address — the buyer-side party the BL is consigned to — and add rows to the Notify Parties table (Party Name, Party Address) for everyone the shipping line must notify on arrival. These blocks print on the Commercial Invoice and the Packing List, so write them exactly as they must appear.

5. Record the invoice and customs numbers

The Invoice section holds the numbers that tie the shipment to your paperwork:

• Invoice No and Invoice Date — your commercial invoice number for this shipment.
• Sales Invoice is read-only: it fills by itself when you raise the export invoice from this shipment in Raise the Export Invoice. The shipment pictured above has already had its invoice raised — that is why EXP/2026/001 shows there; on your shipment the field stays empty until section 15.
• Shipping Bill No and Shipping Bill Date — from your CHA once customs files the shipping bill. The export-benefit paperwork later leans on these, so enter them as soon as you have them.
• Marks & Nos — the shipping marks stencilled on the bags; they print on the Packing List.
• FOB Value, Freight Value and Insurance Value arrived pre-split from the costing — this is the CIF breakup of the deal in the shipment currency.

6. Track the voyage (Logistics)

Fill the Logistics section as the shipping line confirms details:

• Cut-off Date and Cargo Arrival By are your internal deadlines — cargo must reach the port before the cut-off.
• Original ETA is the baseline; Current ETA is the latest word. Delay (Days) is computed from the two — you never type it — and a delayed in-progress shipment shows in the header banner and on the workspace's Delayed Shipments card.
• Expected Funds Date is when you expect the buyer's money against this shipment — it feeds the Expected Funds Inflow chart on the workspace and shifts when the ETA slips.
• IMO No and the collapsed Live Tracking section (plus the Fetch Tracking button in the toolbar) belong to the optional live-tracking feature — leave them alone for now; your administrator can switch that on later.

7. Enter the BL and the containers

When the shipping line issues the Bill of Lading, record it in the Bill of Lading section:

Then list every box in the Containers grid — one row per container, exactly as they were stuffed:

Container No, Size, Line Seal No, Custom Seal No, Bags, Net Wt (Kg) and Gross Wt (Kg) all print, container by container, on the Packing List — so this grid is worth getting right the day the containers are sealed, not the day the documents are due.

8. Work the document checklist

The Documents section is the heart of the shipment file. Every new shipment starts with the same eleven documents, each tagged with who usually prepares it:

• Prepared By tells you who to chase: Us (your own office), CHA (your customs house agent) or External Agency (fumigator, surveyor, chamber of commerce…).
• Move each row's Status along as the paper progresses: Pending → In Draft → Received → Final. Use Completed On and Remarks for dates and chase notes.
• The header banner recounts N/11 final every time you save — that number is your daily to-do list.
• The documents marked Us — Sales Contract, Commercial Invoice, Packing List and the Proforma — you can print straight from the system with your letterhead; see Print the Export Documents.
• The checklist matters beyond this page: when you raise the export invoice later, rows already marked Final arrive pre-ticked on the invoice's document checklist.

You can add rows for anything unusual a buyer demands (an extra inspection certificate, for example) — the banner denominator simply grows with the list.

9. Understand Readiness

The Readiness section answers one question: is the cargo physically ready to ship? It deliberately ignores documents — paper and procurement are two different races:

• Required Net MT and Required Containers are fixed from the costing — the target.
• Purchased Net MT, Delivered Net MT and Containers Allotted are yours to update as your vendors deliver cargo and the shipping line allots boxes.

flowchart TB
    delivered["Delivered Net MT ≥ Required Net MT"] --> ready["Readiness: Ready"]
    allotted["Containers Allotted ≥ Required Containers"] --> ready
    some["Any purchase, delivery or\ncontainer progress at all"] --> partial["Readiness: Partially Ready"]
    none["No progress yet"] --> notready["Readiness: Not Ready"]

Both conditions must hold for Ready — cargo delivered and containers allotted; either one missing and the shipment will not be done. Any progress short of both shows Partially Ready. The workspace number cards (Shipments Not / Partially / Ready) count shipments by exactly this field, so keeping these five numbers honest keeps your whole dashboard honest.

How you know this step worked: save the shipment after updating the quantities — the Readiness field and the banner recolor immediately (red → orange → green).

Where this goes next

• Print the branded Commercial Invoice, Packing List and certificates straight from this shipment: Print the Export Documents.
• Record the buyer's LC or contract terms so the invoice can carry its checklist: Record the Buyer's LC / Contract Terms.
• Then raise the export invoice from this very shipment — ports, BL, containers and FOB split flow across automatically: Raise the Export Invoice.