Electronic commercial invoices

Then there's a fourth meaning, which has nothing to do with customs: national e-invoicing mandates for VAT. A PDF doesn't satisfy those, and a VAT e-invoice doesn't necessarily meet a customs requirement.

Under 19 CFR 141.83, a commercial invoice must be filed for each non-exempt shipment. That doesn't require paper. CBP's Electronic Invoice Program handbook lets brokers and importers filing through ABI send invoice data and drop the paper document. For entries with a paperless selectivity result, the electronic invoice is what CBP uses.

CBP ruled in H328583, on 14 December 2023, that an invoice generated from EDI data can count as the original, as long as it has the required content, and that it needn't be signed. It also accepts copies in place of originals: a copy that isn't a photostat or a photograph needs a declaration that it's a true copy.

CBSA's memorandum says any method of preparing the invoice is fine, whether typed, handwritten or computer generated, as long as the required information is there. It doesn't describe how to send one electronically, and the memorandum dates from 1 March 2013 and is marked as under review. Since 21 October 2024, the official system of record is CARM (see Canada CARM), so ask your broker how it's handled in practice.

The Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 gives an electronic trade document the same effect as paper. It's about documents where possession matters, such as bills of lading, bills of exchange and warehouse receipts. The explanatory notes list those, and a commercial invoice isn't on the list, because you don't transfer rights by handing one over. So don't read the Act as an invoice rule. HMRC's requirement remains that you keep invoices and customs paperwork, on record, as support for the declaration.

Not everything has moved. Check these for each lane:

• Letters of credit. Banks follow the credit's terms, so an original with a particular stamp can still be needed.
• Legalised or chamber-certified invoices. Some destinations require certification by a chamber or embassy. ICC recommends chambers promote electronic submission, but it isn't universal.
• Goods needing other agency documents. A health or phytosanitary certificate often has its own rules.
• Destinations that ask for wet signatures. If in doubt, ask the destination's customs or your agent. Don't assume.

As an illustration, take a shipper sending 300 parcels a month by courier, where 5% need an invoice query, each of which costs 15 minutes of an employee's time. That's 15 parcels a month and 3.75 hours. If paperless data also reduces the error rate by half, that time goes down to under 2 hours a month. The gain comes from the shipment data being right at the source. That's the case for writing your customs descriptions into your product data rather than typing them on each waybill. The figures here are only a model of the sum: use your own query rate.

Keep the source of every invoice in a form you can produce in years to come. Whatever the format, audit rights outlast your software subscription.