Paperwork for the people moving the freight
A forwarder sits between a shipper who knows their goods and a carrier who knows their vessel, and the job is largely turning one into the other in writing. These are the documents that work passes through — the instruction you take, the instruction you give, and the transport document that results.
The instruction your client should be sending you — prefilled, editable, and downloadable as a PDF they can actually use.
| Item # | Description | HS Code | Qty | Unit | Pkgs | Pkg Type | Gross Wt (KG) | Vol (CBM) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The undersigned authorises to act as forwarding agent for export control and customs purposes, to prepare and file any export declaration required, and to sign any document relating to this consignment on our behalf. We certify that the particulars given above are true and complete.
Your entries are kept as you move between documents — the parties, ports, container and line items carry across.
The exporter's instructions to their freight forwarder, including the authority to act as agent for customs purposes.
Books a consignment with a freight forwarder: collection details, routing, cargo particulars and who pays which charges.
Tells the carrier exactly how the bill of lading should read: parties, routing, cargo description and freight terms.
The carrier's receipt for the goods, evidence of the contract of carriage, and a document of title the consignee must surrender to collect the cargo.
The sender's copy of the international road consignment note, retained as proof of what was handed to the carrier.
The SOLAS VGM certificate. No container may be loaded to a vessel without a signed verified gross mass from the shipper.
The instruction is where the errors enter
You transcribe what the shipper gives you. If the HS code is wrong the declaration is wrong, and if the weight is understated the container can be refused under the VGM rules — but the penalty generally lands on the exporter, not on you. That only holds if what you filed matches what they instructed, which is an argument you win with a document and lose with an email thread.
Give clients a form instead of a phone call
Most missing information is missing because nobody asked for it in a structured way. A shipper's letter of instruction that lists the fields you need — routing, Incoterm, HS code, gross and net weights, who pays the freight, which bill of lading and to whose order — collects them once. Send clients the generator and let them fill it in.
One consignment, one set of numbers
The instruction, the transport document and the customs entry are checked against each other at destination. Descriptions, quantities and weights that disagree across the set are among the most common causes of a hold, and reconciling them after filing costs far more than reconciling them before. Entering the consignment once and generating from it is how the numbers stay identical.
Exporters
Issue the invoice, packing list and origin paperwork for a shipment in one sitting, without re-keying the consignee address four times.
Freight forwarders
Produce a clean set of documents for a client who sent you a spreadsheet, and hand back PDFs that a customs broker will accept.
Customs brokers
Rebuild a missing or unusable document from the particulars you already hold, without waiting on the shipper's software licence.
Judge it by the document, not the feature list.
The generator on this page is the product, prefilled and editable. Fill it in and download the finished PDF — then decide.
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