This reflective journal continues where my previous articles left off, where I took a deep dive into the roles of different stakeholders in international trade and gave strategic advice on choosing #incoterms2020 Rules. In this article, I highlight a basic but often overlooked part: documentation.
Documents are vital in international trade, acting like the unseen threads tying together the many parts of global transactions—much like the blood running through our bodies. Good documentation and document management can make processes smoother, create detailed records of a company's decisions, transactions, and ownership details, and handle the important job of checking regulatory compliance and risk transfer—critical for both exporters and importers.
The world of #internationaltrade is busy with lots of documents—maybe thousands—that move among exporting and importing parties and all the in-between stakeholders. Rather than getting into the details of each document—a task made challenging because import and export rules keep changing—I aim to make things simpler by grouping these documents by their type and when they're used:
By Type
Documents in international trade help goods move across borders, keep transactions clear, maintain trust and compliance among trading partners, and speed up data sharing with government and regulatory bodies. These documents help with planning logistics, reducing risk, and keeping international trade relationships stable. They can be generally split into six categories:
Commercial Documents: These start trade transactions and record complex decisions, such as invoices, contracts, and purchase orders.
Transport Documents: These ensure goods move across borders on time and safely and adapt to different ways of transport, like bills of lading and waybills.
Certificates & Approvals: These meet customs rules and show permissions for trading controlled goods, including certificates of origin, quality and safety, customs declarations, licenses, and permits.
Financial Transaction Documents: These help with the payment process for goods and make the transfer of title and ownership easier, like Letters of Credit and insurance.
Notification Documents: These share important trade process information with customers and stakeholders.
Service Documents: These make contracts official, help with moving people across borders, and confirm service providers' qualifications, for example, work permits and visas.
By Stage
Certain documents are needed at each stage of international trade transactions. Knowing these documents' jobs and when to use them can significantly increase confidence in dealing with international trade:
Negotiation: Transactions begin with a chat, usually starting with a quotation request from the importer to the exporter. A Pro-forma invoice, a detailed quote, is the starting point for transactions.
Ordering: After the Pro-forma invoice is approved, a sales contract comes next—a legally binding document outlining agreed-upon terms.
Freight Packaging and Labelling: After the order, the exporter gets goods ready for transport, sticking to packaging and labelling rules specific to each country.
Shipping: The exporter makes sure goods are transported safely, sticking to the sales contract and shipping rules.
Export Customs Clearance: Government approvals control and watch the export of certain types of goods.
Transportation: Documents ensure the safe, secure, and on-time movement of goods.
Import Customs Clearance: Importers need approval documents for the shipment before it arrives at the entry port.
Delivery: An Advanced Shipping Notice keeps the buyer updated about the shipment's departure and arrival dates and what's inside.
Invoicing: This step involves the exchange of Commercial Invoices, Letters of Credit, and Bank drafts/bills of exchange. Insurance and bonds offer protection for investments and goods during transactions.
While this discussion isn't all-encompassing—given the unique requirements of varying industries, products, and services, as well as the diverse regulations among Canada's 15 #FTAs with over 51 global economies and 280+ trading partners—I recommend cross-referencing the types of documents with the stage at which they will be utilized. This will help identify the necessary documentation during the planning stages of international expansion. As a helpful tool, I've attached a cheat sheet that I created. This sheet combines the six categories, various stages, and the most frequently used international trade documents in one comprehensive guide. Lastly, consulting with certified international trade professionals (#CITP) is often a smart move, as familiarizing oneself with every document isn't always practical or needed.
