An import file in logistics is the set of documents that travel with one shipment, usually the commercial invoice, the packing list, the bill of lading or air waybill, and the customs declaration and broker invoice once the goods clear. It is hard to automate because the documents arrive separately, from different senders, in different formats, and they only make sense when they are checked against each other and against the purchase order in the ERP.

Every importer and freight forwarder has a desk where these pile up. Someone matches the packing list to the invoice, the invoice to the PO, the customs entry to the shipment, and keys the result into the ERP. This article explains what an import file contains, why it defeats most document tools, and how import file processing runs when the whole file is handled as one case.

What is in an import file

Commercial invoice

From the supplier. Items, quantities, unit prices, currency, Incoterms. It is the document the PO is checked against.

Packing list

Also from the supplier, often a different PDF sent a day later. Cartons, weights, quantities per carton. It is what the warehouse receives against.

Bill of lading or air waybill

From the carrier or forwarder. Container or flight, ports, dates. It ties the other documents to a physical shipment.

Customs declaration and broker invoice

From the customs broker, after clearance. Duties, taxes, fees. Together with freight they make up the landed cost that has to reach the ERP.

Why it is hard to automate

The documents arrive separately

Four senders, four emails, four days. A tool that processes one document at a time never knows these belong together.

Every sender has a different layout

The supplier’s invoice, the carrier’s bill of lading, the broker’s declaration. Template-based tools need one template per sender and break when a layout changes.

The value is in the cross-check

Does the packing list quantity match the invoice? Does the invoice match the PO? Does the declaration match the shipment? Reading the fields is the easy part. Document merging and validation across the file is where the work is.

It has to land in the ERP as one record

The import file in the ERP, with its PO, its receipt, its landed cost. Not four separate entries that someone reconciles later.

How it works with DOConvert

DOConvert is the AI layer for the ERP. It connects directly to Priority through the DOConvert Priority connector, to Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and to Infor M3, bi-directionally and with no middleware. Here is one shipment.

The documents arrive

The commercial invoice and packing list from the supplier, the bill of lading from the forwarder, the declaration from the broker. Each in its own email, in its own format.

DOConvert identifies each sender and groups the documents

By supplier, shipment references and PO. The four documents become one import file, even though they arrived on different days.

DOConvert finds the PO and the import record in the ERP

Through the direct connection it reads the purchase order and the open import file.

The cross-check

Invoice against PO, packing list against invoice, declaration against shipment. A mismatch stops with a short reason.

The entry

Only when everything matches, the file is entered into the ERP against its PO, with the customs documents and costs attached. That is how Kol Timber stopped checking import documents by hand.

Who it fits

• Importers that receive several shipments a week with supplier, carrier and broker documents by email
• Freight forwarders and customs brokers handling thousands of documents a month
• VPs of Operations and controllers who need landed cost in the ERP without reconciling four entries
• IT and IS managers on Priority, Oracle Fusion or Infor M3 who want a direct connection with no middleware

Questions and answers

Is an import file the same as a customs file?

Not quite. The customs file is the part the broker handles, the declaration and the duties. The import file is the whole shipment, supplier documents included, as it appears in the ERP.

Can the documents be processed one by one instead?

They can, but then someone still has to match them to each other and to the PO. Handling the file as one case is what removes that work.

What if one document is missing?

The documents that have arrived are grouped, and the file stops with a reason that names what is missing, until the set is complete.

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