Correcting a commercial invoice after the goods have shipped
The container has sailed. Then someone finds a wrong price, a wrong quantity or a wrong HS code on the invoice. What you do next depends on one question: has the shipment been entered at customs yet?
Before entry, reissue
If the goods have not been declared at destination yet, replace the document. Issue a corrected invoice. Use the same invoice number with a revision marker, or a new number that refers to the old one. Send it to whoever is clearing the goods. Tell the broker clearly that it replaces the earlier version. A broker holding two invoices for one shipment will file whichever arrived first.
Do not just email a corrected total. The invoice is the valuation document. The version in the customs file is the one that counts.
After entry, you are amending a declaration
Once an entry is filed, the invoice is evidence for a declaration that has already been made. Correcting it is no longer just an exchange of documents between you and your buyer. It is a disclosure to a customs authority. In the United States that is a post-summary correction or, where duty was underpaid, a prior disclosure. Most countries have an equivalent. Most treat a voluntary correction far more leniently than an error they find themselves.
The practical rule: if the error made the declared value too low, correct it and expect to pay the difference. If it made the value too high, you are probably owed a refund. You will only get it if you ask.
A credit note is not a correction
This is where people go wrong. A credit note records a commercial adjustment between seller and buyer. For example a short shipment, a return, or a discount agreed after the sale. It does not amend a customs declaration. Issuing one does not change the value the goods were entered at.
Use a credit note when the goods were correctly described and correctly valued at the time, and something changed afterwards.
Reissue the invoice when the document was wrong when it was written.
Sending a credit note to fix a wrong HS code does nothing at the border. It also leaves your accounts and the customs file disagreeing about what the shipment was worth.
The documents that move with it
An invoice rarely travels alone. If you correct it on its own, you create a new mismatch where you have just fixed one. Check each of these against the corrected version:
The packing list, if the quantity or piece count changed. These two documents are compared line by line. A corrected invoice next to an uncorrected packing list is exactly the mismatch that causes holds.
The certificate of origin, if the goods description or the HS code changed. A chamber-stamped certificate cannot be edited. It has to be reissued. If the destination requires consular legalisation, the whole chain has to be repeated.
The bill of lading, if the description changed in a material way. A bill can be amended before the vessel sails. After that it is difficult. Once it has been handed to a bank, it is a different problem altogether.
Anything presented under a letter of credit. If the credit has already been drawn on, the corrected invoice does not undo that presentation. Talk to the bank before sending anything.
Write down which version is which
Whatever you reissue, make the order clear. Add a revision number, a date, and a line saying what it replaces. Six months later, during a verification, the question will not be whether you corrected the invoice. It will be whether you can show which version was filed, and when.