Balance, ship, clear, receive

The balance is paid against the documents, not against a message saying the goods are ready. Which documents, and in what form, was settled in the order at step 12: the invoice, the packing list, the bill of lading, the certificate of origin, and the test and inspection reports.

The certificate of origin is worth its own sentence. Where you are claiming a duty preference, that certificate and the origin rule behind it are the whole claim. Get it right at shipment, because it cannot be conjured afterwards, and a preference lost on paperwork on a line like bed linen into the European Union at 12.00%, read 1 September 2026, is a large amount of money.

Customs clearance is a broker's job and you should use one. Give them the full length tariff code you settled at step 8, not the six digit one, and give them the whole document set at once. Ask for the landed cost sheet back afterwards and check it against your own sum: that is how you find out whether your step 8 arithmetic was right, and it makes the next order more accurate.

Check the goods on arrival, immediately. Open cartons from different pallets, measure, weigh, check shade against your own retained sealed sample and check the pack. Photograph anything wrong with the carton markings visible in the same frame.

The claim window is short and it is contractual. It is whatever your order says, it starts on a date rather than when you get round to unpacking, and after it closes you have no claim at all no matter how right you are. Put the inspection date in your own calendar on the day the goods ship, not on the day they arrive.

Then write down how the mill performed: shade consistency, size accuracy, whether the dates held, how the mill behaved when something went wrong. Season to season that record is worth more than any quotation, and it is the thing almost nobody keeps.