Good habits should be formed from the beginning when making documents. According to the practice of old foreign trade salesmen, after the transaction is confirmed, the transaction should be filed in time, and the filling content should be sorted out in advance according to the document column, such as customer name and address, goods name and description, etc. When making the document, it can be directly called to avoid the possibility of spelling errors in temporary typing. According to this principle, various foreign trade document making software has also appeared on the market, which can input data in advance and automatically generate according to the document category.
In addition to human errors of the document maker, because there are many links in the foreign trade process, it is inevitable that there will be omissions and errors in the operations of different departments, or errors caused by changes in circumstances. For example, it was originally planned to ship 100 boxes, and the commodity inspection and customs declaration were made according to this number. However, when the actual shipment was made, it was found that the warehouse records were wrong, and the actual shipment volume was only 98 boxes, or 2 boxes were damaged during the loading and unloading process.
For such situations, it can be handled flexibly according to the situation. For operations under letters of credit, the documents are made completely according to the letters of credit; for non-letters of credit, it is necessary to act according to the situation according to the different objects of the document delivery. Therefore, it can be divided into two types of methods: “make the best of a bad situation” and “separate processing”.
The so-called “make the best of a bad situation” means that even if it is not in line with the actual situation, the documents are still prepared according to the conditions agreed in advance, and the impact caused by this is resolved through negotiation with the customer. For example, in the case of a shortage of goods, the documents are still prepared according to the full number. This is often seen under letters of credit, where the accuracy and completeness of documents are strictly required. Regarding the handling of document errors under letters of credit, we will explain it in the following chapter on letters of credit.
The so-called “separate processing” means that documents with different contents are prepared according to the different delivery objects of the documents. For example, in the case that the customs declaration quantity and amount are different from the actual ones, the documents to the customs are prepared according to the original customs declaration information, and the documents to the customer are prepared according to the actual quantity and amount. If the quantity on the bill of lading is consistent with the customs declaration quantity, the unit price can be slightly adjusted to reduce the total amount while the total quantity remains unchanged, so that it is consistent with the actual amount collected.
In addition, due to data errors such as customs declaration, the actual amount of foreign exchange collected is inconsistent with the customs declaration amount, which will affect the write-off. Generally, if the difference in amount is not big, for example, within 2,000 US dollars, it can still be written off. It is also possible to make up for the shortfall by using the overpaid amount to make up for the shortpaid amount and balance the accounts.
Finally, there is another low-level mistake that may be made, which is the loss of documents.