Billing freight, duty, or broker charges separately
Freight invoices, duty statements, and customs broker bills often arrive weeks or months after the goods. Luminous supports this with a dedicated 'Bill freight & duty only' action on receiving reports that have extra charges recorded.
When to use this action
Use this when:
- Your carrier or freight forwarder sends an invoice for shipping charges after the goods have already been received and billed.
- You receive a customs duty bill or broker invoice that covers only the import costs, not the product value.
- You want to bill extra charges without touching the product lines already billed on a separate goods invoice.
Step 1 — Find the receiving report
Go to Inventory → Receiving and locate the receiving report that the freight or duty charges are accrued against.
Tip: Use the Extra costs total filters to find receipts that have unbilled charges.
Step 2 — Use 'Bill freight & duty only'
- Click the ⋮ action menu on the receiving report row.
- Select Bill freight & duty only.
This action is only shown when the receipt has extra costs recorded on it. If you don't see it, the receipt has no freight, duty, or other charges to bill.
Step 3 — Complete the bill form
The bill form opens pre-filled with only the receipt's extra cost lines — freight, duty, service charges, etc. Product lines are not included.
Each charge line shows its cost type (Freight, Duty, Service, or Other) as a label. You can change the type using the line's type selector if it was inferred incorrectly.
Fill in:
- Bill Date — the date on the broker or carrier invoice.
- Due Date — when payment is due.
- Vendor Invoice # — the invoice or reference number from the vendor's document.
Adjust line amounts if the invoice amount differs from the accrual (for example, if you were billed $4,997 against a $5,000 accrual).
Click Save. The bill is linked to the same receiving report as the goods bill, so the extra costs are fully reconciled.
What happens to the GL accounts?
When the bill is released, each charge type posts to its own account:
| Charge type | GL account |
|---|---|
| Freight | Freight In |
| Duty | Duty |
| Service | Services |
| Other | (no automatic posting — assign manually) |
Luminous infers the type from the charge name if it was not explicitly set when the receipt was created (for example, a charge named 'Ocean Freight' is automatically classified as Freight).
Checking billing status on a receipt's extra costs
If you are unsure whether a charge has already been billed, open the receiving report detail and look at the extra costs section. Each charge shows its accrued amount, how much has been billed across all bills, and links to the bills that cleared it.