Document inconsistency means that the preparation of the document does not fully comply with the provisions of the letter of credit. This is the most common accident. The result is a direct discrepancy, and even the document is rejected. In the “document transaction”, the salesperson should establish the concept of “the supremacy of the letter of credit”. Even if there are typos or obvious grammatical errors in the letter of credit, as long as it does not cause ambiguity, if it cannot be modified, it should be moved to all documents as it is.
Furthermore, for the same batch of goods, several sets of documents may be prepared as needed and submitted to the commodity inspection department, customs and bank respectively. These sets of documents have discrepancies in some aspects, which does not affect the bank’s review and payment of its own set of documents. Therefore, other documents can have slight differences, but the one given to the bank must be completely consistent with the letter of credit. This is the biggest principle for handling “document inconsistency” accidents. As for other national institutions, as long as there is no deliberate fraud, a certain degree of flexibility is allowed for operational errors.
Especially for documents prepared by exporters themselves, such as beneficiary certificates, there is no need to stick to the actual operation. Of course, we try to meet the requirements of customers as much as possible, and explain in advance what we cannot do. If there are mistakes due to accidents (for example, the delivery of bills of lading is delayed, resulting in the failure to send out copies of bills of lading in time as required by customers), we can explain it to customers and ask for their understanding when necessary. However, the documents are issued in full accordance with the requirements of the letter of credit.
For bills of lading that are not issued by you but by a third party such as a freight company, you must carefully check the draft with them in advance and confirm it in writing. After getting the original, check it again to see if it is consistent with the confirmed draft. If there are problems, replace them quickly while clarifying the responsibilities. For discrepancies in the effectiveness of the date, please ask the freight company to cooperate and falsify the date to accommodate the letter of credit.
Documents issued by the Commodity Inspection Bureau are not easy to handle flexibly, so you should be more cautious. If there are special requirements for such documents in the terms of the letter of credit, consult the commodity inspection agency first to see if the customer’s requirements can be met. If it cannot be fully met, firmly request to modify the terms of the letter of credit. Due to the flexibility and variability of the foreign trade market and the varying quality requirements, products that the Commodity Inspection Bureau objects to can be negotiated and resolved through a “customer-confirmed” letter of guarantee.