For Australian importers, wholesalers and distributors

Import Supply Chain and Landed Cost Integration

Australian businesses that import have usually integrated everything downstream of the warehouse door and almost nothing upstream of it. Orders on overseas suppliers live in one spreadsheet, container ETAs live in forwarder emails, duty and freight arrive as invoices weeks after the goods, and the true cost of a unit is worked out at stocktake if at all.

The consequences are specific: stock that exists but cannot be sold because nobody can see it, delivery promises made against an ETA that changed a fortnight ago, and margins reported on a cost price that is missing a third of what the goods actually cost to land. This page is about closing that gap.

Book an Import Systems Review (03) 9003 0111

Realistic ROI

4 to 12 weeks

Between order and receipt on most sea freight

Which is exactly how long your stock is invisible if nothing tracks it

5 sources

Typically needed for one landed cost

Supplier invoice, freight, insurance, customs entry and local cartage at minimum

Weeks late

When the last cost document usually arrives

So the design has to handle costing an item before every invoice is in

Per unit

The only level at which landed cost is useful

A total per container tells you nothing about which lines are actually profitable

Four Decisions That Shape an Import Integration

Inbound supply chain is not just outbound run backwards. Four things behave differently and they drive the whole design.

Stock exists long before it arrives

From the moment a container is loaded, that stock is yours, it is committed, and it has a date. Treating inventory as a single number that only changes at receipt throws away the most useful planning data you have. In transit stock needs to be visible as its own state, with a quantity, an expected date and a status, so purchasing stops reordering what is already on the water and sales can sell against an arrival with a promise they can keep.

Landed cost arrives in pieces, at different times

The supplier invoice comes first, the forwarder invoice later, the customs entry later still, and a demurrage charge can turn up a month after that. A costing model that waits for everything is always out of date, and one that ignores the late arrivals understates cost permanently. The workable design estimates on arrival from agreed rates, then trues up when the real documents land and records the variance rather than hiding it.

Currency and duty move the number after you commit

Goods bought in another currency have a cost that depends on which rate you apply and when. Duty depends on the tariff classification and on whether a concession or a free trade agreement applies, which is a decision your customs broker makes, not one you should hard code. The integration should carry those values as data supplied by the people qualified to determine them, and recalculate cleanly when they change.

The ETA is the promise everyone else relies on

Sales quote against it, marketing plans launches around it, purchasing schedules around it, and it changes constantly. If the current ETA only exists in a forwarder email, every one of those decisions is made on stale information. Bringing milestone updates into the systems people actually work in, and flagging changes that move a date materially, is often the single highest value part of the whole project.

What an Import Integration Covers

Six connected pieces between placing an overseas order and knowing what the goods truly cost.

Structured POs

Overseas purchase orders

Orders on overseas suppliers raised in the ERP rather than a spreadsheet, with the currency, incoterm, agreed ship window and deposit terms recorded as data. Supplier confirmations and proforma invoices are matched back to the order so changes to quantity or price are visible when they happen rather than at receipt.

Live ETA

Shipment and container milestones

Booking, departure, transhipment, arrival, customs clearance and delivery milestones pulled from forwarder portals, tracking feeds or structured emails and attached to the purchase order. Material changes to an arrival date raise an alert to purchasing and sales rather than sitting in a mailbox.

On water quantity

In transit stock visibility

Stock that has shipped shown as a distinct state with quantity and expected date, exposed to purchasing for reorder decisions, to sales for realistic promising, and where appropriate to your online store as a preorder or backorder date rather than an out of stock message.

Entry linked

Customs and compliance data

Import declaration references, tariff classifications, duty amounts and any concession or agreement claims captured against the shipment as supplied by your broker, with the documents linked. The integration records and reuses those determinations, it does not attempt to make them.

True unit cost

Landed cost apportionment

Freight, insurance, duty, port and wharf charges, broker fees and local cartage allocated across the shipment on an agreed basis, normally value or volume or weight depending on the goods, to produce a cost per unit. Estimated at receipt from standing rates, trued up as real invoices arrive.

Clean ledger

Finance and inventory posting

Receipts, cost adjustments and variances posted so inventory value in the ledger matches the stock ledger, foreign currency purchases translated consistently, and GST on imports handled the way your accountant and your BAS process require rather than as an afterthought.

What Changes for an Importer

Task	Traditional	Integrated Properly	Notes
Knowing what is on the water	A spreadsheet updated when someone asks	A live quantity with a date	Usually the first thing purchasing and sales both notice, and the easiest to prove value on.
An ETA slips by three weeks	Found when the customer chases	Alert the day the milestone changes	Gives sales time to manage the customer instead of apologising after the fact.
Selling stock that has not landed	Shown as out of stock online	Offered with an honest arrival date	Only worth doing where the date is reliable, and the wording has to be accurate under consumer law.
Cost of a unit at receipt	Supplier price only	Estimated landed cost applied	Stops the classic problem of margins looking healthy until the freight invoice arrives.
Freight invoice arrives late	Expensed, never reaches the item	Allocated, cost trued up, variance shown	Where the variance is large it is a signal about your rate assumptions, not just an accounting entry.
Duty and concession treatment	Known only to the broker	Captured against the shipment	The broker still determines it, the integration records it so it flows into cost and reporting.
Partial container or short shipment	Reconciled by hand	Receipted against the order line	Short shipments are normal, so the design has to handle them without leaving the order stuck open.
Reordering while stock is in transit	Double ordered more often than admitted	In transit counted in the calculation	Directly reduces overstock, and it is the easiest saving to quantify afterwards.

Where Import Integrations Come Unstuck

Landed cost is only calculated at a container level

A total cost for a shipment is close to useless for decision making. You need the cost apportioned to each line, on a basis you have agreed and can defend, because that is what determines whether a product is worth stocking. Agree the allocation basis early, apply it consistently, and be aware that value based allocation and volume based allocation can give very different answers for a container holding both dense and bulky goods.

Estimates are never trued up

Estimating cost at receipt is the right approach, but only if the true up actually happens when the real invoices arrive. If it does not, your inventory value and your reported margins drift further from reality every month and the error compounds quietly. Build the true up as a scheduled, monitored step with a report of items still carrying estimates, not as something a person is supposed to remember.

GST on imports is treated as an ordinary tax code

GST on imported goods works differently from GST on a domestic purchase, and some importers use the Australian Taxation Office deferred GST arrangements, which carry their own lodgement conditions. This is a matter for your accountant and your customs broker to determine. What the integration must do is carry their determination through consistently so your BAS figures reconcile, rather than guessing a tax code because the field was mandatory.

The ETA is trusted more than it deserves

Shipping dates move for reasons nobody controls: port congestion, transhipment delays, weather, container availability. If you publish arrival dates to customers, publish them with a margin and update them as they change, and be careful about how you word availability and delivery timing, because representations about when goods will arrive sit squarely within the Australian Consumer Law. A confident date you miss costs more than a cautious one you beat.

Foreign currency is handled inconsistently

The rate at the order, at the invoice, at payment and at month end are all different numbers, and mixing them produces an inventory value nobody can reconcile. Decide with your accountant which rate applies at which point, apply it the same way every time, and keep the original currency and amount on the record so any figure can be traced back rather than being a converted number with no history.

Everything depends on one forwarder relationship

Integrations built tightly around a single freight forwarder portal have to be rebuilt when you change forwarders, which importers do more often than they expect. Model shipments, containers and milestones in your own systems in a neutral shape, and treat each forwarder feed as a source that maps into it. Changing provider then costs a mapping rather than a project.

How Yes AI Approaches an Import Integration

We start with visibility, not costing

On water stock and reliable ETAs usually deliver value in weeks, while a full landed costing model takes longer and needs finance sign off. Sequencing it that way means the business feels the benefit early and the harder accounting work gets the attention it deserves rather than being rushed.

Costing rules agreed with your accountant

Allocation basis, exchange rate policy, estimate rates and true up treatment are decided with the people who own your financial reporting and documented before build. We implement their determinations on import duty and GST treatment, we do not substitute our judgement for professional tax advice.

Built, hosted and monitored by us

Milestone feeds, document capture and cost postings run on a managed cloud automation layer we operate, with alerting when a feed goes quiet. A forwarder portal that stops responding is noticed the same day rather than at the end of the month when the ETAs have all gone stale.

Neutral shipment model so you stay portable

We model orders, shipments, containers and costs in your own systems so the data survives a change of forwarder, broker or carrier. Each external feed is a mapping into that model, which keeps switching providers a commercial decision rather than a technical obstacle.

From Forwarder Emails to a Connected Inbound Chain

Five steps. Visibility usually lands first, with full landed costing following once finance has signed off the rules.

Map the inbound chain as it is

Every system, spreadsheet and mailbox from raising an overseas order to posting the last freight invoice, including who updates what and when. We put hours and error rates against each step so the priorities are based on evidence rather than opinion.

Model shipments in your own systems

Purchase order, shipment, container and cost lines represented in the ERP or inventory system in a neutral shape, so external feeds map into something you own. This is the step that keeps you portable later.

Connect milestones and turn on visibility

Forwarder and tracking feeds brought in, in transit stock exposed to purchasing and sales, and alerting configured for material date changes. Most businesses see the benefit here before anything about costing has changed.

Build and validate landed costing

Allocation rules implemented, estimates applied at receipt, true ups scheduled, and the whole model validated against shipments you have already closed so you can compare the calculated cost with what really happened.

Monitor, reconcile and extend

Ongoing alerting on quiet feeds, a standing report of items still carrying estimated costs, periodic reconciliation of inventory value to the ledger, and extension to additional suppliers or lanes as they are added.

FAQ

What is landed cost and why does it need integration?

Landed cost is the total cost of getting a unit of stock onto your shelf, including the supplier price, freight, insurance, customs duty, port and wharf charges, broker fees and local cartage. It needs integration because those amounts originate in different systems and arrive at different times, often weeks apart. Without a process that pulls them together and allocates them to individual items, businesses report margin against the supplier price alone, which is routinely a long way short of what the goods actually cost.

How do we show stock that is still on the water?

By treating in transit stock as a state of its own rather than as stock you do not have. The quantity, the expected date and the shipment reference are held against the purchase order and exposed to the systems that need them: purchasing so reorder calculations count it, sales so promises are realistic, and sometimes the online store so a customer can order against a known arrival. The essential discipline is that the date shown must be the current one, updated as milestones change.

Can we calculate landed cost before all the invoices arrive?

Yes, and in practice you have to. The usual approach is to apply an estimated cost at receipt based on standing rates for that supplier, lane and product type, so the goods can be sold at a sensible price immediately, then true the estimate up when the real freight, duty and handling invoices arrive and record the variance. Watching those variances over time is genuinely useful, because a rate assumption that is consistently wrong shows up quickly rather than sitting inside your margins unnoticed.

Who decides the tariff classification and duty treatment?

Your licensed customs broker, working with your accountant where tax treatment is involved. Tariff classification, whether a concession applies, and whether goods qualify under a free trade agreement are technical determinations with real compliance consequences, and they are not something an integration should infer. What the integration does is capture those determinations as data against the shipment and product, apply them consistently in costing and reporting, and keep the supporting documents linked so the basis of the decision can be found later.

Does this require replacing our ERP?

Usually not. Most mid sized ERP and inventory systems can represent purchase orders, in transit quantities and cost adjustments, even if the standard screens are not designed around importing. Where a system genuinely cannot hold in transit stock as a state, the practical answer is often to model shipments in a connected layer and feed the ERP the postings it needs, which is far cheaper than replacing a system that otherwise serves you well. We will tell you plainly if your existing platform is the real constraint.

What about GST on imported goods?

GST on imports is handled differently from GST on domestic purchases, and depending on your circumstances the Australian Taxation Office deferred GST arrangements may or may not apply to your business. That is a determination for your accountant, and the conditions attached to it matter. The integration should carry whatever treatment they specify through consistently so that your inventory costing and your BAS both reconcile, and so the source documents are retrievable when questions arise.

How long does an import integration take?

Shipment visibility and ETA alerting can typically be delivered in a few weeks, because it is mostly a matter of connecting feeds and exposing data you already have. A full landed costing model normally takes longer, commonly one to three months, and the pacing item is rarely the build. It is agreeing the allocation basis, the exchange rate policy and the true up treatment with the people responsible for your financial reporting, then validating the model against shipments that have already closed.

Know What Your Stock Costs Before It Lands

Book a call. We map your inbound chain, show where visibility and cost accuracy are being lost, and give you a priced plan. The map is yours either way.