The Ultimate Freight Invoice Format for NPOs

Freight invoice format for NPOs

hi everyone welcome to the logistics for nonprofits webinar I will wait 30 seconds more just to make sure that every time everybody has a chance to get here this webinar today is the first webinar of a series we will talk about the basics of international shipment that hopefully equip you to have better conversations with your reporter if you have any questions if you're interested for example in the domestic shipping or any other topic please feel free to reach out to us afterwards and we will make sure that we cover your topics in an upcoming webinar before we start I would also give would like to give a huge huge thank you to Natasha from needs list needs list invited us to contribute to global refugee Week needs list is the world's first marketplace for communities in crisis and we are really really happy that we can partner with you in each list today alright let's get started today we will talk about the five mistakes to avoid when shipping goods at the end there will be time for questions you can post the questions in the webinar window that you see on the right my name is Suzy I'm the head of flexpa rhetoric FlexPod org is the impact program of flex port hi everyone my name is Kathleen and I work with Suzy on the Flex portal team managing our programs [Music] why we are here today there are over 130 million people in need of humanitarian aid in addition there are also many many people who daily suffer the challenges of poverty other crises for the UN coordinated Appeals alone we need 25 billion dollars to fund the programs for the people in need wise logistics important 60 to 80 percent of those 25 billion dollars get spent on logistics every year today we hope to share advice with you that hopefully enables you to save money but also time to make sure that the goods reach the people that really need them [Music] wonderful so let's dig in as Susan mentioned this will be kind of a basic overview of how to process an international shipment and common mistakes that are made but please chime in with questions throughout the webinar and we will get through them at the end so to start in most non profit shipments there is a donor and a recipient of goods but with international shipping additional layers of responsibility are added on top of that so as you can see here there are five main parties in a shipment let's say for example you're a non-profit and you have goods that you want to donate but just having an address of where it's going does it mean that you know the importer or exporter or who is responsible for clearing customs however the goods must always be as shipped in ance with local national laws otherwise you risk fines or worse your shipment never making it to where it's going on the flipside if you receive a product donation will first that example will another company be running the process or clearing customs on your behalf or do you need to act as this entity if you do need to be that entity you need to make sure you compile what you comply with local agency requirements such as US or EU customs a freight forwarder is typically your partner in this process they might be the customs broker but it's not always the case so what we recommend at the beginning stages of this shipment is to always remember to talk about these parties early who is doing what who's responsible for what and make sure you choose your partners that will help you throughout this process and finally there's the carrier so you might have an ocean carrier that's actually moving your shipment you might have trucking carriers that are involved from getting it to the port or away from the port again they'll have different roles and responsibilities and make sure you just discuss it this shows the general lifecycle and key milestones in an ocean shipment for an example every step that you see here can have a different party involved and a different person responsible a main guidance here are going to be your Incoterms so there are about eleven Incoterms each with their own meeting application and rules we have a guide for you in the resource section at the end but just to highlight it here that they define the obligations and cost between the seller or the shipper and the buyer or the consignee so again we just recommend to clarify your responsibilities early it's needed for the coordination of the shipment and also defines the handover of the risk so for example if your cargo is damaged throughout one of these key points in the shipment depending on the Incoterms that person will be responsible for managing that damage depending on the incoterm that you selected a good freight forwarder should always catch it if you're selecting the wrong one so for example some Incoterms only apply to ocean shipments some apply to air but if it's never discussed or if you're never talking about it from the beginning and you again can run into extra costs or delays once you clarify kind of the parties the second mistake is not to share every piece of information that is important to get your pricing so what are the key components for getting a quote we recommend to provide the mode that you want to ship your goods with detailed cargo information like the weight and the dimensions the freight service do you want to get the shipment to the port and then pickup with yourself with your partners or to door the Incoterms that we just discussed the detailed origin and destination address and if there are any hazmat cuts it is important to share those details because otherwise you're free folder will make assumptions and there are two issues with you know making assumptions number one is if you're free folders make different assumptions you will not be able to compare the prices that they give you if you compared different different service providers and the second problem is of course the freeholder makes assumptions such that they don't lose money but let's say right the calculate based on the weight that they have and other dimensions a very generous price if they move the shipment and it turns out that is cheaper they might not give you the money back right it's kind of the profit that they keep so make sure that there is either way that you can regularly update your code before you book it or that you get all the information before you request the pricing it's also important to remember that you budget more money than just the amount on the coat there are certain items that can't be coded for example some customs chargers there might be exceptions during the shipment life cycle such as tracking waiting time at the port because there's congestion and some insurance amounts that have to be paid separately wonderful so with that once your shipment starts to move you're gonna have many documents exchanged and required throughout the shipment so we'll go over some key ones here you'll see the three main documents in the shipment to quickly review them your bill of lading it will define the shipper and the consignee or who takes ownership at destination throughout the shipment the bill of lading acts as somewhat of a contract or a permission to own the goods so having all that information correct is really important the next one is the commercial invoice so that will tell you the actual value of the goods so it has things like the unit value the count and the description and let us always have your complete supplier and consignee information including where the country where the goods are coming from the packing list will always match the product information on the commercial invoice and it's important that you have those product details listed out so why is this as important in Puerto Rico for example so many goods had to be destroyed or actually sent back because the documents weren't so they were held up at customs and those Goods that were donated never made it to the people that needed them so the consequences can really be tremendous and can you know ruin your shipments the freight forwarder will check for you and highlight any problems that they see but ultimately you're responsible for those documents and making sure that they're accurate so as you're doing this ask questions ask about specific requirements for a country so for example the EU or the US will have country specific documents that are required or shipment specific so even if you're shipping hand sanitizer that can count as hazardous material and require its own specific documents if a disaster hits in a region that you've never worked in there might be specific requirements for those so again start that conversation early make sure you know exactly what you need to do number four not set any expectations up front with your partners especially if the crisis hits right and there's not a lot of time we would still recommend to really highlight what the key dates are for example if you work with a company who's donating goods then the most important date might be the pickup date right because they have to clear the warehouse on the other hand I'm especially in the first 48 to 72 hours after your disaster it's important that Goods get there as soon as possible so just be clear about the acquirement is extremely important such that your partners know what they should prioritize for they pick the fastest mode right or is there time depending on the type of goods that are being shipped so that there can be a mix of modes that can be applied to your shipments and you should ask yourself how are exceptions managed how do you learn about them can you track your shipment started status do you know where the container is and what is actually in the specific container that is about to arrive who's making the last man delivery how to hand over work when do you have to pay us organization are there any approval processes that you have to make aware of right let's say every 30 days your remembers meeting and kind of approving bills right make sure that you're afraid for your loss for that and then the last question is if the cargo is damaged how does the insurance process look like there are companies that offer technology we would highly recommend to look out for those solutions like neat lists who offers a marketplace also flex bird who's providing great analytics and systems for free to you for you to use wonderful and then the last mistake is just not using your nonprofit status so there are a lot of benefits that come from being a non-profit in a shipment so you always want to talk to a customs expert from the beginning some countries will actually let you waive the duties for donations going to a non-profit again like everything else there are very country specific rules um you might have to have certain receipts and documentation you might need to be registered in a certain way so talk about it wave it from the beginning but if you can save those costs that means you have more cost in your programs to deliver your services you're really careful on your documents so in the US for example even if you are shipping goods that were donated at no cost to you you still have to declare the fair market value on the documents so if they're worth five dollars if you were to sell them you have to put five as their value and finally always advocate that you are a non-profit and that you're doing good for example many of our partners at Flex port will discount services for disaster relief or for regular good causes so always ask it's worth trying and you might get a discount because of it so here's the summary of the five mistakes to avoid when shipping goods number one not defining your wealth parties make sure that you know who's responsible for what - not sharing every piece of information for the quote the more detailed information you have the better the estimate from effort folder will be make sure that you know what's included in the quote is it an all embrace or other any charges that might appear later really try to understand what you're presented with number three not checking your documents for compliance we want to make sure that your goods are if that they're not held up in customs and reach the people in need as soon as possible for not setting expectations up front with their partners there's a lot of technology out there make sure that your service partner knows what they're optimizing for especially the date and the type of products at your shipping and lastly not using your nonprofit stutters there are many benefits of being a nonprofit and when you highlight your status hopefully you can also save money flex port is a license free folder we offer ocean air tracking services we also offer custom services we have an impact program that is called flex pot org and our program focuses on reducing global carbon emissions as well as providing low-cost logistic services for nonprofits but also companies that donate product what does it mean and practice we offer pro bono supply chain consulting so if you have any questions you can reach out to us we also ship edit discounts every shipment that's dedicated to a greater cause will be moved automatically at a discount and lastly we can also help out with the nation's many of our clients would love to help so if you're an organization that is managing a program and you need goods we can also help out with that wonderful and flex port has a lot of resources that are readily available to you so in the slide deck that we will send out after this you can link out to our Flex port Help Center it has many different documents many different guidance for example like I mentioned earlier there's a guide to Incoterms and kind of what all of them mean how to choose the right one how to consign your bill of lading correctly there's a template for commercial invoices to make sure they're correct and then Susie and myself are always here so please feel free to get in touch with us flex port org offers pro bono consulting so you could email NGO at Flex port comm or visit us at Flex port org to find out more we now have ten minutes for questions wonderful so it looks like there's one in so far and everyone please feel free to send them questions there's nothing too small and no we went over a lot in a short time this first one is asking how do you recommend evaluating what it's worth spending money on shipping for and what isn't worth it that's a great question so we ran into this with Puerto Rico actually we had someone that wanted to donate goods to Puerto Rico to help with the disaster relief it was a really big shipment it was right after it hit and we ran all of the numbers did the analysis and essentially was going to take a really long time and it was going to be really really expensive because of everything going there and all of the you know roads that were be able to run on and everything like that so what we recommended that it was actually more cost efficient and had a bigger impact to donate it domestically so to someone in the US and avoid spending that extra money and actually get the goods where they could be sent especially for the goods donated right so they if the company is listening in and I would recommend it's great if you want to help but maybe your good is not needed right now right make sure that you check in nonprofits partner who actually know that needs on the ground and then you ship goods that are ready to use just sending a package doesn't help what we heard is you know goods arrive and it's not really sent a non-profit or nonprofit didn't really requested those goods oftentimes they can't be put into use regarding shipping we would highly recommend to pay for insurance I think that's a very important item just because you know the nature of logistics that can always be exceptions I think that's definitely worth it I would always request very detailed quote to really understand the costs and then for the military there's a huge price difference if you consider that it's say air shipments versus ocean shipments so really try to figure out what is the difference and transit time right what is different for how long does it take to move the goods there versus the price difference and see if you can reach a mix by a clinic in advance of course what disaster is really hard but oftentimes there's also the longer recovery period and if you have a partner that you can engage early with I'll suggest that build relationships early so that you have figured out most of the questions it just saves a lot of costs if you avoid any misunderstandings any holdings and customs they're really expensive and we want to avoid any fines so just like being in conversations early I think it's the most important part for really saving money great and the next question that's come in is we've had people giving us customs declarations and languages that we don't speak what is the best way to handle that so I think it depends on the partner you're working with ideally you're working with the freight order so it's if you're like an individual you can also declare customs by yourself without having a license if you work with the customs broker if it is working on behalf of someone else they have to have a license what we do we often work with partners on the ground it's one really important to be aware of changing regulations that happen and in many countries they happen frequently and the second one is a statistic to check kind of the languages so really engaging people on the ground or work with companies that can provide the service is really really important [Music] thank you one more has come in what do you recommend if cargo is damaged during a shipment what's the best thing to do that's a really great question and something that unfortunately happens a lot in shipping the very first thing you do if you find that your cargo has been damaged is to escalate it to your partner so whether it's your freight forwarder or your carrier that delivered it always make sure you're sending pictures documenting doing as much as possible right away many carriers have just a 24 to 48 hour window to report insurance claims so doing it as soon as possible will get you the best chance at getting that money back because again that's the most important part of your shipment is actually the cargo that arrives and then I see one last question what are the advantages of technology you mentioned except for trucking so again we think that visibility is a really really important advantage but the second one that I would like to highlight is analytics right we know that nonprofits oftentimes operate on a type object for example at Flex port we digitize all your documents and that allows you to really assess your Freight spent in real time you can see it was the average trends at time how are your containers utilized right is there any way you can make improvements and base on it and then two things we can also provide consulting for how to improve your supply chain it also might help with messaging right usually in logistics there are a lot of phone calls a lot of emails back and forth and you have to write find the right email right the latest version of the document right that you want to submit if you use a platform and technology it can help you to have everything in one place and really simply for simplifying communications which is especially important if you have to operate really fast timelines right how people need or just a clarify questions we want to make sure that you don't have the hassle with customs and figuring out logistics that they took the our job and so hopefully right you have a place where you can ask a lot of questions to make sure that you address all the points we just discussed [Music] great we don't see any further questions again if you have some afterwords please feel free to reach out to us we really thank everyone for joining thanks again to needs list have a wonderful day