Create Commercial Invoice for Public Relations with Ease

Create commercial invoice for Public Relations

what's up design family and welcome back to another episode of fit design tv so glad to have you back on the channel on today's episode we have a continuation of our fashion brand document how-to series on a previous episode we looked at the purchase order an integral part of starting any order with a distributor or a supplier on today's episode we'll look at the commercial invoice whether you're a buyer looking to buy from other brands in order to distribute or you're an actual brand looking to sell on your goods to retailers or wholesalers you'll need to know how to construct a strong and professional commercial invoice from the listing of the buyer and the seller to the payment terms to actually listing out the goods that are being transacted on and the total amount due you'll need to know all this information and how to structure it and this is going to be the episode for you [Music] hey guys and welcome to fit design tv so glad to have you here on this channel we discuss all things sports fashion graphic design manufacturing and technology we'll discuss key topics answer pressing questions and provide actionable steps on starting your own product line if you're interested in any of the above topics stick around in for a good one [Music] once the production of your goods has been finalized and your goods are ready to ship out to the buyer you want to present them with a finalized commercial invoice your commercial invoice will want to record what goods have been have been purchased and what quantities of these goods have been purchased ultimately you'll want to organize your commercial invoice in a professional and accurate way with unparalleled fidelity because this is going to be used for things like your customs clearance so it needs to be as accurate as possible to avoid any issues with imports and exports so now let's get into the actual document itself what information to include and how to format it starting off you'll always want to register all official documents on company letterhead whether you're going to make it yourself or hire a graphic designer always make sure that official documents are standardized and are presented in a professional way on company letterhead you'll want to include things like the company name your address and essential contact information next you'll want to include the name of the document on our previous episode we discussed the purchase order so in that case we had purchase order in this context we're going to be issuing an invoice and a commercial invoice at that there is a difference between the type of invoice that you can issue whether it's a performer invoice or a commercial invoice and we can get into that in a different episode but for now just know that we're issuing a commercial invoice the first primary segment that you want to include in your invoice is the date in which your invoice was issued it's extremely important to be accurate because a lot of your payment terms will come with a date attached whether it's net 30 net 15 you'll want to know when the invoice was issued so you can follow through on that payment in this case we'll say that the invoice is going to be issued on december 1st 2020. you'll also want to include a unique invoice number and this differs between company and company in terms of how you structure your invoice numbers but know that it's important to have a unique invoice number for every single invoice you issue so that you can call back to it and track it over time number two you'll want to mention the seller's information in this case my brand spectre llc is the seller we're the ones doing these selling and let's just say we're distributing to a retailer so we'll mention that the seller or the consignor is spectre llc next we'll want to actually add the name of the contact person whether there's a sales manager or an account manager you'll want to mention them specifically in this case we'll put my name as the ceo shady aldada and we'll add that as the contact person next mention the telephone number of this person or the contact number so that people know who to contact for this order whether it's an order that gets held up in customs or the buyer needs further clarification next you'll want to mention the address of the company so that you know where to return the goods and ultimately to formalize the payment in section 3 we have the buyer's information so let's just say spectre llc is selling their goods to fit design fit design is looking to buy these goods to distribute them in their stores so in this case fit design would be considered the consignee if spectre as the seller is the consigner fib design as the buyer is the consignee and in terms of the information you'll want to mention the contact person the telephone number the email address and ultimately the physical address the physical address should be 100 accurate because this is going to be the address used for delivery next we'll need to mention the sales confirmation number this again is a unique number that you'll need to generate or that is generated for you by the buyer in order to be able to trace back the sales confirmation at any point in time also you'll need to have the shipping company used and the method of transportation for example if you're shipping by cargo using british airways you'd mention that this is british airways cargo or if you're shipping by ups as an air express you'll want to mention that this is ups express if it's by sea freight mentioned by seafrag so on and so forth at the same time you'll want to mention when the payment is due we mentioned in the beginning that there are specific payment terms like net 15 and net 30 that dictate payment dates so here if we have a net 30 payment schedule and the date the invoice was issued was december 1st 2020 then naturally the payment would be due on january 1st 2021 so lastly in this section you'll want to mention the tax number of the buyer this can either be the fat id or the tax number or any other company registration number and it's extremely important to include this for your customs declaration process your goods can actually be held up at ports and can incur high storage fees if you don't include essential information so make sure to check beforehand what your local customs authority needs you also want to mention the total gross weight of the shipment which should be calculated beforehand and lastly the total quantity of goods being shipped now we move into what is considered as the most important part of your commercial invoice this is a product details sheet or table best done in excel and this is a way to organize your thoughts and these cells as accurately and as professionally as possible the types of information you want to include are definitely your style number in a separate video we've done an overview how to structural style number but let's just say here in our invoice we want to include a performance t-shirt run that we did in red white and blue so in this case we'll have our style number as 2020 fall winter since we're gonna be launching in fall winter and zero one to represent the performance t style and then zero one to represent black and then another zero two to represent blue and then a zero three to represent red next we'll move into the garment description which i've already mentioned is a performance d and then we'll move into the unit cost of this item so this unit cost is going to be let's just say ten dollars you'll also want to mention the quantity ordered let's just say it's 40 and you also want to mention the colorway the colorways are extremely important because they relate back to your style number so to recap it goes your style number your garment description the color ordered quantity unit cost and ultimately your total cost your total cost per line item is going to be calculated as your unit cost multiplied by the quantity per that color order so for the black colorway let's just say again it's ten dollars per item and we've ordered 100 items let's just say here we're gonna have a total cost of one thousand and of course we've ordered 100 100 100 for each three of our colors so we'll end up with one thousand one thousand one thousand and this will give us our subtotal so our calculations before shipping and handling our subtotal here is three thousand and our shipping by ups express is another thousand this will give us a order total of 4 000. obviously if you have that you'll want to include that calculate the percentage of your vat and then this will plug into your overall total that's due next you'll have a concise section on your payment terms at this point the buyer would have already paid the deposit and what's due will only be what's left so this will depend on the credit terms that have been applied on the initial invoice whether it's a 25 deposit and a 75 payment or it's 50 50 this would have to have been mentioned in the initial invoice and would have to be taken into account also paying to attention the credit terms that were applied for example let's just say you provided net payment terms of net 30. this means that your payment is due 30 days after the invoice is issued i've already mentioned this but it's also important to follow through in your payment terms and then lastly let's just say your payment terms include something like a cash on delivery clause this means that the buyer is only needing to pay once they've taken delivery of the goods so this should be mentioned in the bottom section of your commercial invoice and make sure that it's consistent with other documents that you've supplied in regards to this transaction following through on the payment terms section you'll also want to mention the specific type of payment that needs to be made for example what's the methodology of the payment that you expect your buyer to make is it by cash bank transfer credit card or is it even by paypal be specific and make sure that that is also outlined in your payment terms section and then last on your commercial invoice is going to be your packing instructions or your packing information how have you packed your goods are you packing them in a plastic polybag with a swing tag make sure to mention that and then lastly authorize or signify the authorization of your invoice with a signature whether it's from your company's ceo the cfo or anyone else who's authorized to make these decisions it's important to seal off the invoice and to make sure that it has been seen by the right people the company to avoid any issues down the line that's a wrap guys we hope you have a better idea now on how to create a professional and concise commercial invoice if you guys enjoyed this video and you want to see others like it let us know which document you want us to cover next thank you guys again so much for tuning in to videos on tv and until next time stay awesome