A document cycle in M&C ERP: from purchase order to customer delivery

Everyone has heard plenty of ERP theory. This article takes a different approach: follow one specific shipment — from placing an order with a Japanese supplier to the delivery note reaching a Vietnamese customer — and see how M&C ERP manages each step.

Step 1. Ordering: purchase order in JPY

The procurement officer creates a purchase order for the Japanese supplier — the agreed currency in the order is JPY, with the exchange rate recorded at the time of transaction. This is the starting point of the entire cost chain: everything that happens later — freight, duties, shipping costs — will convert back to the cost of each item in this order.

The order lists: compressors, bearings, replacement parts — typical items in the industrial equipment distribution industry.

Step 2. At sea: the shipment has an “address”

After the supplier ships the goods, an import shipment is created in the system — and this is where M&C ERP differs from a typical ERP. The shipment isn’t a vague “in transit” line; it carries real logistics industry information:

• Vessel name, departure–arrival ports with international standard codes (UN/LOCODE)
• ETD (ship departure date), ETA (estimated arrival), ATA (actual arrival)
• Container number, status at each stage

The director opens the shipment screen and immediately knows: where the goods are, when they’ll arrive, which shipments are delayed. Questions that used to require waiting for forwarder email replies are now one screen.

Step 3. Customs: the numbers that determine cost

Goods arrive at port, the import-export team files the customs declaration. On the declaration, the system records the two most important numbers in import business: import duty and import VAT.

Why should these two numbers be in ERP rather than separate tax software? Because they determine cost. An imported item’s cost isn’t equal to the purchase price — the real cost is: purchase price (JPY × exchange rate) + import duty + freight + other import costs. If these cumulative amounts are outside the system, the cost in ERP is just an estimate — and all subsequent numbers (profit margin, quotations) are estimates too.

M&C ERP has another small but valuable mechanism: supplementary filing deadline reminders. Declarations have a 60-day supplementary filing deadline — the system automatically reminds at three milestones before the deadline: 30, 15, and 7 days. Accounting doesn’t have to remember an important milestone that no tax software reminds about.

Step 4. Warehouse entry: serials are generated when goods hit the shelf

Goods arrive at the warehouse, the warehouse keeper creates a goods receipt based on the shipment. For items requiring traceability, the system automatically generates serial numbers for each product at warehouse entry. From this moment, each compressor, each bearing set in the warehouse has its own identity — not just “30 compressors”, but 30 serials, each knowing which shipment it belongs to, which ship it arrived on, which declaration it passed through.

Step 5. Cost: import costs allocated to each item

Accounting runs the import cost allocation operation: import duty, VAT, freight, port fees are allocated to the cost of each item in the shipment. This is the step that turns scattered numbers into real cost — the numbers that accounting and management can trust for decision-making.

At the same time, posted documents are locked: the system blocks modification and deletion of posted documents at all levels. The fear of “someone accidentally deleting a document” — the classic concern when moving from Excel to a shared system — is solved by mechanism, not by trust.

Step 6. Customer delivery: documents in the right template, with the right serials

A sales order is created, the warehouse keeper issues a delivery note — with a list of serials for each product in the note. The note is printed in a Japanese-style document template (納品書) that customers are familiar with.

For invoices, the system issues a 適格請求書 meeting all 6 mandatory items per Japanese regulations (with 登録番号) — see previous article for regulatory details. Japanese customers receive familiar documents, accounting on both sides can cross-reference easily.

Step 7. After-sales: serial-based warranty

Nine months later, a customer calls: equipment malfunction, needs warranty. The service officer enters the serial into the system — immediately sees: which shipment this product was imported in, who it was sold to and when, whether the warranty period is still valid. Create a warranty request directly from the serial screen. No need to search paper records, no need to ask the warehouse again.

Common thread: each step generates data for the next

Looking back at the chain, what’s noteworthy isn’t individual features, but the continuity: purchase orders generate shipments, shipments generate declarations, declarations feed cost, cost feeds quotations; serials are generated in the warehouse for delivery and warranty. Each document is entered once — and subsequent entries reuse previous data instead of re-entering.

That’s the definition of a system that’s “not fragmented”: when goods reach the customer, every number related to it — cost, duty, serial, warranty period — is already in the right place.

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Want to walk through this document cycle with real sample data? Contact us for a demo account of M&C ERP for the import trade industry.