Import dossiers

An import dossier is the folder of one purchase from abroad, as your bank and your forwarder call it. You open it when the foreign supplier’s proforma arrives. It holds the supplier, the currency, the terms of the sale, how the goods travel and your bank’s domiciliation. It also records the day of each step. Every dossier takes the purpose of import that your business gave on Setup.

A dossier moves no stock and no money. Procurement writes the purchase orders and receives the goods. The Foreign trade officer and the owner of your organization open the dossiers and take each step on them.

Open an import dossier

1. Open Foreign Trade, then Import dossiers, and press New. If your business has not said yet what it imports for, New opens Setup instead. Say it there, then press New again.
2. Beelocity fills in the Dossier number, such as IMP-2026-000001. It is the dossier’s own number, not the bank’s. You can type another one.
3. Under Parties and terms, fill in the sale:
   • Pick the Supplier. The list offers only active suppliers.
   • Check the Currency. It starts as the supplier’s currency, or as yours. Pick the currency of the proforma.
   • Pick the Incoterm that the proforma prints, such as FOB or CIF. FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF are rules for sea transport. If you pick one of them, the Transport mode below reads Sea, and you cannot change it (Which Incoterms go by sea).
   • Beelocity does not ask for the place that the Incoterm names. Under FAS and FOB it is the Port of loading, and under CFR and CIF it is the Port of discharge. You pick both under Route.
   • Type the proforma’s number as the Supplier reference.
4. Under Route, choose the Transport mode first: sea, air, road, rail or multimodal. If the Incoterm has already chosen sea, go on to the places.
   • The two places are named for the mode. By sea, they are the Port of loading and the Port of discharge. By air, they are the Airport of departure and the Airport of arrival. By road, by rail or by several modes, they are the Place of loading and the Place of discharge.
   • Each field offers only the places of that mode. In the first one, type the place’s name, its code or its country, such as Shanghai, CNSGH or China. Then pick it from the list, which groups the places by country.
   • The second field offers only the places of your business’s own country, as your organization’s profile names it. It can never hold the place of loading.
   • If a place is missing from the list, leave the field empty, and name the place in the Notes.
   • Add the Country of origin if the goods are made in another country than the supplier’s. Add the Carrier and the Transport document number when you know them.
   • Free days is the number of days that the shipping line lends its containers after discharge. Beelocity counts them from each container’s Discharged on day. A dossier that travels by air has no containers, so the form does not ask for free days.
5. Fill in the domiciliation, as The bank domiciliation says below.
6. Under Dates, enter the Expected departure and the Expected arrival that the forwarder gave you.
7. Press Save. The dossier opens as Open, with its road drawn at the top of the page.

You can change the dossier later with Edit. A forwarder often changes the carrier or the place of discharge while the goods are on their way, and the dossier should say so.

Some dossiers were opened before Beelocity listed the places. Such a dossier shows each place as somebody typed it, on the page and under the field when you edit it. It does so until you pick the matching place.

Which Incoterms go by sea

The International Chamber of Commerce writes eleven Incoterms. Seven of them suit any transport: EXW, FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU and DDP. Four are written for the sea: FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF. Under them, the goods change hands alongside a ship or on board one.

So when you pick one of those four, the dossier goes by sea. The Transport mode reads Sea, and you cannot change it. The field says why, under it. If a place of loading or of discharge was picked for another mode, Beelocity empties it, because an airport is no port for a ship. If you pick one of the other seven, the mode is yours again, and it keeps what it held.

Goods in containers that are handed to the carrier at a terminal are often sold FCA rather than FOB, as the Chamber advises. Beelocity does not insist, because a FOB container shipment is common and lawful.

The bank domiciliation

Before anything is paid or shipped, your bank registers the purchase and gives it a domiciliation number. A few purchases need none. The Domiciliation section opens on one question, Domiciled or exempt, with its four answers in view:

• Domiciled by the bank. A new dossier starts on this answer, and the form then asks for four things:

  • The Domiciling bank, which is one of your bank accounts. The list offers bank accounts only.

  • The Domiciliation number. Copy it from the bank’s stamp. The usual number has fifteen characters, from the year to the currency, such as 202431000080EUR. The full number has twenty-three, with the branch’s code in front and a key at the end. Beelocity takes both.

    The field puts the spaces between the groups as you type. If you stop after the twelve characters before the currency, Beelocity adds the dossier’s currency when you leave the field. It does not complete a full number. It keeps the number without its spaces, and checks that its currency is the dossier’s.

  • The Domiciliation date, the day that the bank domiciled the purchase. Copy it from the bank’s stamp.

  • The Import programme that the bank domiciled the purchase under. Pick it among your import programmes, with the newest first. Each one reads as its number and its half-year. A programme for your own needs also shows its kind, such as PPI-2026-000004 — Second half of 2026 · Equipment. Beelocity accepts only a programme for your business’s own purpose of import.

    After you pick the programme, the field shows any overrun, and what is left of its maximum amount if it has one. If the domiciliation date falls outside the programme’s dates, Beelocity says so under the date, and it still saves the dossier (What Beelocity points out).

• Exempt: under the threshold, for a value under the regulatory threshold.
• Exempt: sample or gift.
• Exempt: suspensive regime, for goods under a suspensive customs regime, such as temporary admission.

An exempt dossier asks for no bank, no number, no day and no programme. If you choose an exemption, the form takes those fields away. When you save, Beelocity clears whatever you typed in them. So a dossier is always domiciled or exempt, and never both. If you switch back to Domiciled by the bank before you save, the fields still hold what you typed.

Add the purchase orders

A dossier covers whole purchase orders of its supplier, in its currency. Procurement writes the orders and receives their goods as usual, under Purchase orders. The dossier gathers them, and it does not change them. While an order is in the dossier, its supplier and its currency cannot change.

1. Open the dossier and its Purchase Orders tab.
2. Press Add a purchase order, choose the order, and press Add. You can add a draft order, because you often open the dossier on the proforma, before the order is approved.
3. Do the same for each order of the purchase.

Only the Foreign trade officer and the owner of your organization can add or remove an order, and only while the dossier is Open.

The list shows the supplier’s orders that are not in this dossier yet. If the dossier cannot take an order, the list greys it out, with the reason beside it:

• The order is in another currency than the dossier’s. An order that names no currency is in your base currency, so a dossier in euros cannot take it. Procurement can set the order’s currency while the order is a draft.
• The order is cancelled or revised. A revision replaces a revised order, so add the revision.
• The order is already in another dossier, and the list names that dossier.

Beelocity reads the list again each time that you open it. So an order that Procurement wrote in the meantime is in it.

The Goods value, under Parties and terms, adds up the orders before tax, in the dossier’s currency. It counts their lines after the discounts, and it leaves out a cancelled or revised order. Beelocity works it out again each time that you open the dossier. So it follows any change that Procurement makes to an order.

The Goods Receipts tab lists the goods receipts of those orders. Procurement writes and completes them, as it does any other receipt. You receive nothing through the dossier. A machine received as an asset goes onto the asset register, and not into stock.

If your role can see the dossiers, the purchase order’s own page shows Import dossier, with the dossier’s number, which opens it.

While the dossier is Open, you can take off an order that you added by mistake. Press Remove in its row’s menu. The order itself stays as it is.

After the dossier covers an order, its Supplier and its Currency are fixed, because every order in it is that supplier’s, in that currency. To change either one, remove the orders first.

The order holds them too. Procurement can still edit a draft order that is in a dossier, but not its Supplier or its Currency. If your role can see the dossiers, the order’s page closes the two fields and names the dossier. Otherwise Beelocity refuses the change, and its message says why. The order can take another supplier or currency only after it leaves the dossier. The Foreign trade officer or the owner removes it, while the dossier is Open.

See what the dossier draws on its programme

A dossier that names an import programme has an Import programme tab. It sets each line of the dossier’s purchase orders against the programme line that it draws on:

• Programme line is the line that holds the product’s tariff sub-heading. Beelocity finds it, and nobody picks it.
• Used is the quantity ordered, in that line’s unit.
• Remaining is what the line has left after Beelocity counts every dossier under the programme. If the dossiers go past the line’s quantity, it reads Overrun by the excess. It is the figure that the programme itself shows.

A good that counts on no line is listed all the same, with its Reason. It has no product, its product has no tariff sub-heading, the programme does not hold its sub-heading, or Beelocity cannot convert its unit. What a programme has left says what to do about each one. Only the owner of your organization can change a product’s sub-heading or its units. A dossier that names no programme has no such tab.

Follow the goods from departure to closing

The dossier’s road is drawn at the top of its page: Open, In transit, Arrived, Customs cleared, Closed. Each step records the day that it happened. Beelocity offers today’s date. If the step happened earlier, change the day, because the forwarder’s email often reaches you a day or two after the ship sailed. The day cannot be later than today, or earlier than the day of the step before.

1. When the goods leave, press In transit on the road. The Mark shipped window asks for the Shipped on day and the Transport document number. Then press Mark shipped.

   The transport document is the bill of lading, the air waybill or the road consignment note. If the dossier already has its number, the field starts with it. The goods can leave only a dossier that your bank domiciled on that day or before, or one that states its exemption.

2. When the goods reach the place of discharge, press Arrived. Give the Arrived on day in the Mark arrived window, and press Mark arrived.

   A container’s free time does not count from this day. It counts from the container’s own Discharged on day, on the dossier’s Containers tab (See which containers are running late).

3. When customs releases the goods, press Customs cleared. Give the Customs cleared on day in the Mark customs cleared window, and press Mark customs cleared.

   Procurement then receives the goods against their orders with a goods receipt, as for any other delivery (Goods receipts).

4. Close the dossier when its papers are complete. Beelocity closes it only if no order in the dossier has goods left to receive.

   Press Closed on the road, give the Closed on day in the Close the dossier window, and press Close the dossier. Until every order has nothing left to receive, the Closed step stays greyed out. Rest on it to read which orders still wait.

Rest on a step of the road to read its day. Before the goods leave or arrive, In transit and Arrived show the day that the forwarder expects. After a step is reached, it shows the day that it happened and who recorded it.

If you recorded a day by mistake, correct it with Edit until the dossier is closed. After the goods leave, the dossier number, the supplier, the currency and the Incoterm cannot change, because your bank and customs already hold them. The route stays open, because a forwarder often changes the carrier or the place of discharge on the way. The domiciliation, the programme, the expected days and the free days stay open too. A closed or cancelled dossier keeps only its Notes open.

Cancel a dossier

If a purchase does not happen, cancel its dossier while it is Open. Click the step that the dossier is at, at the top of the page, to open the list of moves. Pick Cancelled, and press Move to Cancelled.

The dossier stays, with its number and its domiciliation. Beelocity takes its purchase orders out of it, so that another dossier can take them. You cannot cancel a dossier after Procurement has completed a goods receipt for one of its orders, because the import happened.

What the app refuses, and why

• A domiciliation number without its date, or a date without its number. The two come from the same stamp. The form says so on the field that is missing.
• An expected arrival before the expected departure.
• A place that the transport mode does not use, a place of discharge outside your business’s own country, or the same place twice. A seaport on a dossier that travels by air is one example. The form offers only the places that fit. It says before you save that the two places are the same.
• A sea Incoterm on goods that travel by air, by road, by rail or by several modes. FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF are rules for sea transport. The form chooses Sea for you, so you meet this refusal only on a dossier that was written some other way.
• A domiciliation number of the wrong length, or in another currency than the dossier’s. The number is mistyped, or it belongs to another purchase. Check it against the bank’s stamp.
• A partner that cannot take a new document as a supplier. It is not marked as a supplier, it is inactive, or its supplier status is not active. The Procurement manager, the Sales manager or the owner of your organization can put it right on the partner’s page.
• An order that is cancelled or revised, another supplier’s, or in another currency than the dossier’s. None of them belongs in this dossier.
• An order that is already in another dossier. An order is in one dossier at most, and the message names the dossier that it is in.
• Deleting a dossier that covers orders. Remove the orders on its Purchase Orders tab first, and then delete the dossier. If you want to keep the dossier’s record instead, cancel it. A cancelled dossier stays for good, and you cannot delete it.
• Deleting a purchase order that is in a dossier. Only the Foreign trade officer or the owner of your organization can take the order out of the dossier, while the dossier is Open. Then Procurement can delete the order.
• A step dated later than today, or earlier than the step before it. For Mark shipped, the step before is the bank’s domiciliation.
• Goods leaving a dossier that is neither domiciled nor exempt. The Mark shipped window says so, and it offers no Mark shipped button. In the Domiciliation section, enter the bank’s number and day, or choose the case that exempts the dossier. Then take the step again.
• Closing a dossier while one of its orders still has goods to receive. The Closed step stays greyed out until then, and it names the orders when you rest on it. In Procurement, the Procurement manager or the owner of your organization receives the goods, or closes or cancels the order.
• Changing what the dossier’s step has fixed: its terms after the goods leave, and everything but its notes after the dossier is closed or cancelled.