Collect the documents

The documents arrive after the container is loaded and before it lands, to your bank under a letter of credit or to you on a transfer, and the balance moves against them. Check each one against the purchase order before it does:

• Bill of lading. Issued by the shipping line at loading; the paper the yarn is claimed with at your port. Check the carton or pallet count, the gross and net weight, the ports and the consignee, and that its date sits inside the shipment period on the order.
• Invoice and packing list. Both issued by the mill against the bill of lading. The invoice must carry the count, the price per kilo and the weight basis exactly as ordered; the packing list must give the cones per carton, the cartons per pallet and the net weight per lot, and the lot on it must be the lot on the test report.
• Test report. Issued per lot by the mill’s laboratory, or by the laboratory the order names, before shipment. Check count, twist, strength, evenness, imperfections and hairiness against the figures you ordered, and that the lot on the report is a lot on the packing list; a report for a different lot is not a report.
• Inspection report. Issued by the inspector you paid in step 9, before loading, if you took one. Check that the cones drawn came from the lots being shipped, and keep it beside the test report for any claim.
• Proof of origin. A certificate of origin from the exporter’s chamber of commerce, or whichever proof of origin the destination’s scheme accepts, only where a duty preference depends on it. Check that the origin, the heading and the quantity match the invoice, because a proof that does not match the invoice can cost the preference on the whole shipment.