I would like to be able to customize my Commercial Invoice (Other Forms) similarly to how most of the other documents have customizable options. I use ShipStation Connect to print all of my documents because it is very convenient.
Currently every time I print a Commercial Invoice it also prints a mostly blank page with a border that just says "Electronically Submitted" which is promptly discarded.
It would be nice to select black and white printing.
It would also be nice to choose to print multiple pages at a time as DHL requires 3 copies of each commercial invoice.
New
Commercial Invoice Document Options
Currently, we can't add notes or broker information on commercial invoices. This create issues for our customers who want to use their own brokers. We use UPS mostly and commercial invoices are sent electronically.
Also, we should be able to edit buyer/receiver as 2 different parties on commercial invoices.
Hi Davis, I appreciate your reply and I understand the limitation.
Since declaration of products/value, receiver information and other fields are being passed on to UPS to create/send back documents, are you saying UPS is limiting access to other notes/fields in their commercial invoice creation API? Can you share the specific limitation so we can put pressure on UPS to allow this? Thanks!!!
Hi @acedeno!
Davis and I were discussing this and I wanted to let you know that we are still looking into this. Most of what was discussed in this thread likely falls under what we'd consider "compliance" with international shipping (that is, what data gets transmitted and where does that data end up), but due to the holiday the individuals that would likely be able to tell us some of the specifics you'd like to know are out of the office.
I'm going to follow up with them next week to see what kind of information we can provide around this and hopefully offer some next steps for you.
There are a few observations I did make that I'd like to share in this thread for others reading it though.
- I do see on the UPS commercial invoice that the recipient name/address is used in both the Ship To and Sold To areas. Often buyer and recipient are the same, but sometimes they are not. So I'm going to follow up to see if this is expected.
- The commercial invoice PDF file for UPS that you print through ShipStation does include 3 copies of the invoice - so you only need to print once and you'll have all three copies required. I do not know if the DHL commercial invoice also does this. However, if it doesn't you can always choose the browser print option instead of ShipStation Connect, and you can then use the "system dialog" to print as many copies as you want.
- The UPS commercial invoice template (you can view a blank sample by going to the UPS forms library) doesn't include a "notes" or "broker" field (ShipStation also does not have a "broker" field) so I'm not sure where that data would live. Is there a different form required when a "broker" is required on the forms? If so, which form is it? If a different form is required, we'd likely need to update the integration, but that would require the UPS API supporting it - which I don't have a way to know if it does or not.
If you can answer any of the questions I posed, that would be super helpful. Either way, we'll do our best to follow up with more information after the holidays.
Would love to bump this topic. I've been going back and forth between UPS/ShipStation for weeks on where I can update my commercial invoices to 2 separate addresses for Ship from and Sold to. UPS basically told me to handwrite it, even though they're the ones transmitting the information, but there is a Sold to: field in Ship Station which should be editable as well. Please help resolve this problem.
Another bump please - our request is about customer email address. Every single time when UPS has issues contacting the customer, they call/email requesting phone (which is on the invoice already) and email for the recipient. Why can't we show the email address next to the phone number or something?
Another bump. The sold to information in SS needs to add more fields for buyer info and to different from receiver information, and this should be properly populated in the commercial invoice. Most invoicing/ecommerce sites support this where buyer and receiver and not the same.
Hi - I would really like this option too. If the invoices are created by the carrier, then we would like to have the carrier include all of the information from the order on the commercial invoice. If Shipstation can facilitate this with the carriers, it would be very helpful. I've been directly asked by FedEx to include the customer's contact email on the commercial invoices but have no way of including it as they are made during label creation and then attached electronically. Typically the customer then has to file a GAA with fedex to arrange either fedex or another broker, so not having that contact info printed or a way for us to customize the commercial invoice is creating huge barriers in our business. We've had over 30 shipments delayed in customs in the last 3-4 weeks, and have to manually contact fedex to provide the customer emails so they can then reach out to the customer process through customs. Please help, it's a massive time burden on the customers and on our staff to have to do this each time with fedex. thank you!
hello, bumping this thread again in need of the Ship To And Sold To sections to be different. We need to be able to edit the Sold To section for certain orders!
We're in agreement with others that the commercial invoices should properly populate differences between sold to / billing and ship to addresses. We also use UPS and transmit electronically, but this disparity on the invoices creates issues for customers in some countries that end up wasting our time and make our company look sloppy when it comes to such details. Couldn't it be fixed with some simple logic on the order import?
Bump as i need to customize my commercial invoice going from CA to USA with
The following: Section 321/ET86 provision.
I want multiple invoice based on the country we ship.
Hello Naak!
Thank you for your post! We appreciate this idea, but unfortunately, we don't control how the commercial invoices get generated. It varies so much from Carrier to Carrier. That is more than likely the reason as to why customization hasn't been offered.
Keep posting issues you run into here in the community; seeing what each of our merchants experiences is always helpful!
Happy Shipping!
-Cara
I am bumping this topic again as this is still a major compliance issue when shipping internationally.
As other posts have stated, often times the receiver of the package is not the importer of record/Sold To. The inability to make these changes causes major compliance issues, unnecessary communication that confuses our customers, delays in shipping, and incorrect charges.
All major carriers (UPS, FDX, DHL) allow both the Ship To and Sold To fields of their commercial invoices to be edited, so this is not a limitation from the carriers but a limitation of ShipStation. The same information is needed: name, address, tax id...
Please add this one section so that all shippers can export correctly...
Hello, @OBships!
Thank you for your post and bump! While this change is not currently on our roadmap I have passed this along to developers for review.
Happy Shipping!
-Cara
We need invoice too. Yea generate a order summery or Packing slip kind of template with header "Invoice" and add price or cost so it's visible and let people customize it. This should be enough for most of people. Thanks
US Customs entries continue to tighten their requirements. If, as SuperMgr-Sarah suggests, the commercial invoice is populated with details from Shipstation, the conclusion is to allow the "Sold To" information to be editable. Currently, its not.
With about 90% of our shipments from Canada going to the USA are over $800 USD, we have to revert to using UPS's shipping software, Worldship. Here, we can edit the commercial invoice inputs. Unless Shipstation can fix this, there is no reason to continue with Shipstation. For other Shipstation users, I would suggest you look at UPS's Worldship as an alternate. They've been making great strides over the past few years.
SuperMgr-Sarah - It would be nice to hear where Shipstation is sitting on this subject right now.
Hello, @mrcpuet!
Thank you for your post and for sharing how this feature would benefit you. We’ve forwarded your request to the development team for their review. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
Happy Shipping!
-Cara
Hey everyone - i'd like to reiterate the importance in being able to edit the Sold to section on commercial invoices. We are based in the UK and our carrier is FedEx and are having similar issues. We ship hundreds of packages a day and use Shipstation with a connector (BSITC) from our inventory software as it is quick and easy.
We ship worldwide and have recently found LOTS of customs related issues when shipping to the US. The main issue we have is that even though we ship DDP to the US, where we cover all duties and taxes and are the importer (as noted on the CI) customs are stopping the goods and asking that the consignee provides more information for import. We have been told by a Global Support Specialist at FedEx, that this is because our CI shows our UK business as the importer of record, not our US address. These kind of delays of course slows things down and customers can get very frustrated.
We have a US entity, with a US EIN and address, and when creating labels on FedEx.com we can set a profile which allows us to edit the Sold to section and show all information customs is asking for.
The problem we have is that FedEx.com is not user friendly (which is hilarious for a shipping company), or time affective and we would rather use Shipstation for ALL shipments. We cannot do this with our US shipments however as there is no way to edit the Sold to section. I understand this information comes from the carrier, but there MUST be a way for Shipstation to add a field where we can imput the Sold to details which could populate the Sold to section. Whether that be under Customs Declarations or adding code with a new "sold to address box" which gives us the option to add addresses on the Sold to Section.
Please listen to your customers and make changes. For some there is literally no point using Shipstation for international shipping if editing the sold to sections can't be done. This is the most important part when shipping oversees and when the shipper wants to be the IOR.
bump - please make ship to/sold to editable fields for customs forms that are generated electronically
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