---
title: "15 \u2014 Raise the Export Invoice"
space: "Setup Guide"
url: "https://jmtradelink.com/setup/15-sales-invoice"
updated: "2026-07-13"
---

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](/setup/12-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](/setup/14-contract-term). 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](/setup/05-exim-setup). 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](/setup/05-exim-setup)). No GST add-on is required for this flow.

What happens around this invoice:

```mermaid
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

![Top of the Details tab: Company Navchetan Agro Exports Pvt Ltd, Branch Head Office, Customer Societe Cotonou Trading SARL, posting date and payment due date filled](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__invoice-details-top.png)

- **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](/setup/05-exim-setup) (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 Calculation block inside an expanded invoice line: Duty Drawback Rate 1.9%, Rodtep Rate 1.2%, computed Duty Drawback Amount 2,28,139.65 and Rodtep Value 1,44,088.20, Freight and Insurance in CFA, FOB Value 1,20,07,350.18](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__item-benefit-rates.png)

- **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:

![Exim tab of the export invoice: Container Details table listing ten container numbers with seal numbers and weights, a Hedging Details section, and the Export Documents section beginning below](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__exim-tab-overview.png)

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:

![Container Details table on the invoice: rows MSKU0071100 through MSKU0071107 with shipping line seal numbers and net weight 27,000 / gross weight 27,270 kg each](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__exim-container-details.png)

- **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](/setup/14-contract-term), attached automatically:

![Export Documents section: Contract and LC set to CT-00002, three verification checkpoints in the Sales Invoice Contract Term Check table and five documents with copy counts in the Sales Invoice Export Document Item table — every Checked box ticked — followed by Shipping Bill Number 9915522 and Shipping Bill Date 12-07-2026](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__export-documents-checklist.png)

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:

![Duty Drawback journal entry: Entry Type Duty Drawback Entry, Duty Drawback Receivable debited 2,28,140.00 and Duty Drawback Income credited the same, Reference Number EXP/2026/001](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__drawback-journal-entry.png)

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](/setup/05-exim-setup); 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:

![Activity log on the submitted invoice recording Duty Drawback JV set to ACC-JV-2026-00007 and RODTEP JV set to ACC-JV-2026-00008 at submission](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__invoice-jv-links.png)

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:

![BRC Management list with a newly created record against Sales Invoice EXP/2026/001 for Societe Cotonou Trading SARL, total shipping bill amount CFA 8,20,80,000.00](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__brc-created.png)

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:

![Invoice section of the Export Shipment after invoicing: Invoice No and Sales Invoice both EXP/2026/001, Shipping Bill No 9915522, currency USD, Marks & Nos, FOB Value 98,571.41, Freight Value 16,947.06 and Insurance Value 63.54](/files/em-setupguide-15-sales-invoice__shipment-invoice-link.png)

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](/setup/17-benefits-claims). And the BRC record that just appeared is the star of the next section: [Get Paid & Close the Loop (BRC)](/setup/16-payment-brc), where the buyer's payment lands against this invoice and the export is closed in the bank's eyes.