Foreign Trade

The Foreign Trade module is for a business that buys abroad. An import is not bought the way you buy from a supplier down the road. Your bank has to domicile the purchase before anything is paid or shipped. Then the goods travel for weeks and wait for customs to clear them. The shipping line charges for its containers after your free days run out. Each step has a date and a paper, and a missed date costs money.

Beelocity keeps all of it in one place, beside the purchase orders, the goods receipts and the stock that you already follow. It is built for the import clerk, and for the owner who follows the imports and wants to know what the goods really cost.

What you can do today

• Say once whether your business imports for resale or for its own needs. Every new dossier and programme takes your answer. See Setting up foreign trade.
• Keep each import programme that the ministry gave its visa to, with the newest visa first. Each programme holds its half-year, its last day, its maximum amount and the tariff sub-headings that it allows, with the dossiers filed under it. A programme for your own needs also says whether it brings in materials or machines. See Import programmes.
• Open an import dossier for each purchase from abroad. It holds the foreign supplier, the currency, the Incoterm, how the goods travel and between which two places, and the country of origin. See Import dossiers.
• Keep the bank’s domiciliation on the dossier: the number that your bank gives, its date and the bank, or why the purchase needs none. See The bank domiciliation.
• Gather the dossier’s purchase orders, see their value before tax, and find their goods receipts on the dossier. See Add the purchase orders.
• Follow the goods from departure to closing: shipped, arrived, customs cleared and closed, each on the day that it happened. See Follow the goods.
• List the containers, and see which ones are late going back to the shipping line. See Containers.
• Record the customs declaration that the broker filed, article by article, with the goods that each article covers. When you record it, Beelocity adds its costs to the dossier’s charges. See Customs declarations.
• See the import taxes that you deduct, filter them to one month, and export them for your tax return. See What you deduct.
• Record what the import cost beyond the supplier’s price: the invoices for the freight, the insurance, the forwarder, the port, customs and the bank. Each charge is in its own currency, and Beelocity converts it into your base currency. See Landed cost.
• Work out what each line of goods really cost on the dossier’s landed-cost sheet. When you post the sheet, the goods in stock take their landed cost. See Read the landed-cost sheet.

The Foreign Trade page

Open Foreign Trade in the sidebar. Its first page lists what is moving, and it reads each list again every time that you open it. If your role can open a dossier, New import dossier at the top of the page starts one. You see only the blocks that your role can read, in this order:

• Purpose of import not set: shown only until your business says whether it imports for resale or for its own needs. Until then, New on the import dossiers or on the import programmes brings you to Setup. Press Open Setup in the block to go there. See Setting up foreign trade.
• Programmes in force: the import programmes whose last day is today or later, the soonest to end first. Each row gives the half-year, the last day and the days left. A programme for your own needs also shows its kind, so that the machines’ programme reads apart from the materials’ one. If the programme states a maximum amount, the row says what is left of it. It also says how many lines are overrun, if any are.
• In transit: the dossiers whose goods have left, the one expected soonest first. If a dossier’s expected arrival has passed, its row says overdue. Then call the forwarder.
• Awaiting clearance: the dossiers whose goods have arrived and wait for customs, with the number of days that they have waited.
• Containers to return: the containers still out whose free time ends in the next three days, or has already ended. A late container shows how many days late it is. A container appears here only after it has a Discharged on day and its dossier has Free days. See Containers.
• Not yet shipped: the dossiers that are still Open, the soonest expected departure first.
• Landed costs to finalize: the dossiers cleared through customs, or closed, whose landed-cost sheet is still a draft, the oldest clearance first. A dossier leaves this block when you finalize its sheet. The goods in stock take the landed cost only when you post the sheet, so post it after you finalize it. See Finalize the sheet and Post the landed cost to stock. You see this block only if your role can see what an import cost.

Each row opens its dossier, its programme or its container, where you take the next step. Each block says how many rows it holds, and View all opens the whole list where a block offers it.

What the module is for

Foreign Trade follows the road that an import takes. With it, you can do three things:

• Follow each shipment from the order to the warehouse: shipped, arrived, customs cleared and closed. See which containers must go back before the shipping line charges for them.
• Know what the goods really cost: the supplier’s price, plus the freight, the insurance, the forwarder, the port, the customs duties and the bank.
• Record what customs liquidated, and see which part of it is a cost. The import TVA and the advance on profits tax are not costs, because you deduct them from your taxes.

Foreign Trade moves no stock and no money. Procurement receives the goods with a goods receipt. Foreign Trade pays nobody, neither the supplier nor whoever billed a charge. You pay the supplier in Treasury, against its bill or its purchase order (Receipts and payments).

Who can use it

The Foreign trade officer role lets one person handle the imports without also giving them the point of sale or the payroll. The officer takes every step in Foreign Trade. It reads the suppliers, the products, the purchase orders and their goods receipts, the bank accounts and the exchange rates that a dossier needs. Outside Foreign Trade, the only record that it adds is an exchange rate. So Procurement writes the orders and receives the goods. When the officer posts a landed cost, Beelocity changes the cost of the dossier’s goods in stock and of its machines.

The owner of your organization can do everything, as in every module. No other built-in role sees the dossiers. See Roles and permissions.