15 — Raise the Export Invoice

This is the moment the whole chain has been building toward: the goods are on the water, the paperwork is Final, and now you bill the buyer. You don't type this invoice from scratch — the system builds it from the shipment, carrying over the ports, the BL, every container, the FOB split per product line, and the LC checklist you recorded earlier. Your job is to fill in the benefit rates, tick every checkpoint, and submit. The instant you do, the system books your Duty Drawback and RODTEP entitlements as accounting entries and opens a bank-realisation (BRC) record — three things traders usually chase weeks later, done before you close the tab.

Before you start

• Your shipment exists and its paperwork is under control — set up in Run the Shipment. Documents you have already marked Final there arrive on the invoice pre-ticked.
• The buyer's LC / contract is recorded as a Contract Term — done in Record the Buyer's LC / Contract Terms. It attaches to this invoice as the checklist that gates submission.
• The benefit accounts and the Branch record are configured — done in Exim Accounts & Masters. Without them, submission fails instead of posting the benefit entries.
• Keep your shipping bill and your products' notified Duty Drawback and RODTEP rates at hand.

One-time technical setup — ask your administrator. The invoice handoff needs the exim app installed alongside Export Management, and the Duty Drawback / RODTEP accounts set on your company (covered in Exim Accounts & Masters). No GST add-on is required for this flow.

What happens around this invoice:

flowchart LR
    ship["Export Shipment\nports, BL, containers,\ndocuments marked Final"] -->|"Create > Sales Invoice"| si["Export Invoice\npre-filled + checklist"]
    ct["Contract Term\n(LC checklist)"] -->|"attaches automatically"| si
    si -->|"on submit"| jv1["Duty Drawback\njournal entry"]
    si -->|"on submit"| jv2["RODTEP\njournal entry"]
    si -->|"on submit"| brc["BRC record\n(payment tracking,\nnext section)"]

Steps

1. Create the invoice from the shipment

1. Open your Export Shipment (from Export Shipment in the workspace sidebar).
2. At the top right, open the Create menu and click Sales Invoice.

The Sales Invoice entry appears only while the shipment has no invoice linked yet and its costing is Won with a submitted Sales Order behind it. Once you save the invoice, the button retires — one shipment, one invoice.

How you know it worked: a new Sales Invoice form opens with the deal already in it — the buyer, the products and quantities from the Sales Order, and (on the Exim tab, step 4) the ports, BL number, vessel, shipping bill, every container, and the LC checklist. The per-line FOB values are computed for you: on a CIF or CFR deal the system nets the shipment's freight and insurance out of each line, so the benefit math runs on the true FOB figure.

2. Check the basics on the Details tab

• Company and Customer come from the order — confirm they're right.
• Branch is required on an export invoice. Pick the branch you created in Exim Accounts & Masters (for most single-office firms that's simply Head Office). The form will not save without it.
• Set the Posting Date and Payment Due Date to match your invoice date and the credit terms you agreed.

3. Enter the benefit rates on each product line

Still on the Details tab, scroll to the Items table and open the row (click the pencil at the end of the line). Inside, find the Duty Calculation block:

• Duty Drawback Rate — your product's notified drawback percentage. It starts at 1.5%; overwrite it with the rate from the drawback schedule for your product.
• Rodtep Rate — the RODTEP percentage notified for your product.
• FOB Value, Freight and Insurance are already split onto the line — leave them be.
• If your product's drawback is capped per unit, tick Maximum Cap and enter the Capped Rate; the system then applies whichever is lower.

How you know it worked: on save, Duty Drawback Amount and Rodtep Value fill in on the line — rate × FOB value. These are the rupee amounts the system will book as receivable when you submit.

4. Review what the shipment carried over — the Exim tab

Click the Exim tab:

Behind the scenes, the tab also rolls the per-line figures from step 3 up to invoice level — Total FOB Value, Freight, Insurance, Total Duty Drawback and Total Rodtep, held in a Duty Calculation summary. On a standard setup this summary stays out of view and simply drives the entries booked at submission, so don't be surprised that the tab opens straight at Container Details.

• Container Details — every container from the shipment, with seal numbers and weights. Spot-check the count against your BL:

• Hedging Details — shows amounts only if you booked a currency forward against the order (an optional practice covered in its own section). Zeros here are normal.
• The ports, BL number and date, vessel, and countries travelled here from the shipment too — they feed the printed documents and the BRC, so if a BL detail changed at the last minute, fix it on the shipment before invoicing.

5. Work through the LC checklist

Scroll down the Exim tab to Export Documents. This is the checklist promised in Record the Buyer's LC / Contract Terms, attached automatically:

1. Contract and LC is already set to your Contract Term (the system offers only contracts that cover this order). If it's empty, pick it — both tables below fill in the moment you do.
2. In Sales Invoice Contract Term Check, tick each verification checkpoint — these are your own discipline gates (LC Terms Verified, Documents Submitted To Bank, …) and nothing pre-ticks them for you.
3. Just below it, in Sales Invoice Export Document Item, tick Checked on each document row as you confirm the paper is ready. Rows for documents you already marked Final on the shipment arrive pre-ticked — the two checklists talk to each other.
4. Confirm Shipping Bill Number and Shipping Bill Date (carried from the shipment) — the BRC and your benefit claims quote them.

Don't try to shortcut this: the invoice refuses to submit with any box unticked. You'll see "Not all documents are checked for Export Documents" or "Not all documents are checked for Document Checks" until every row is confirmed.

6. Save, then Submit

Click Save, review the totals one last time, then click Submit and confirm.

How you know it worked: the moment the invoice submits, three things happen without another click from you —

1. A Duty Drawback journal entry is posted. Open Journal Entry (search bar → "Journal Entry List") and you'll find a new entry with the Duty Drawback Entry badge — your drawback amount debited to the receivable account and credited to income, with the invoice number as its reference:

2. A RODTEP journal entry is posted the same way — look for the RODTEP Entry badge next to its twin. Both entries use the accounts you set on the company in Exim Accounts & Masters; if submission stops with an account error, that section is where to fix it.

   The quickest success check doesn't even leave the invoice: both entry numbers are stamped onto it as Duty Drawback JV and RODTEP JV the instant it submits, and the invoice's activity log (bottom of the Connections tab) records the stamp — if you see both JV numbers there, both entries posted:

3. A BRC record is opened for the payment leg. Open BRC Management (search bar) and you'll see a fresh record carrying your invoice number and value — it will track the buyer's money until the bank certifies the export as realised:

Back on the shipment, the invoice is now stamped into the Invoice section — invoice number, shipping bill, FOB / freight / insurance values — and the Sales Invoice button is gone from the Create menu:

The invoice itself keeps a link back under More Info > Export Shipment, so you can always walk the chain in either direction.

What happens next

The drawback and RODTEP amounts now sit in your receivable accounts, waiting for the government money — you'll consolidate and settle them in Claim Your Export Benefits. And the BRC record that just appeared is the star of the next section: Get Paid & Close the Loop (BRC), where the buyer's payment lands against this invoice and the export is closed in the bank's eyes.