Help

1. Getting started

Suvis Landed Cost shows what each import shipment really cost: the goods, freight, every local charge and customs duty. Bills are checked against what was quoted, and extra cost is approved before it reaches accounts.

Registering your company

1. On the sign-in page choose Register here.
2. Enter your company name, your name, your work email, your 10-digit mobile number and a password.
3. We email you a 6-digit code. Enter it to confirm your email. Your company's private workspace is created and you become its company admin.
4. Next, follow For the company admin in order.

Signing in

• Your login is always your email address.
• Password: type your email and password.
• Sign in with a code: no password needed. We email you a 6-digit code that works for 10 minutes. People added by an admin without a password sign in this way the first time, then set a password in My profile.
• Forgot password: we email a code; enter it with a new password.
• My profile (click your name, top right) changes your name, mobile number and password.

Roles: who does what

The company admin can change which role does each job: see Who can do what. Who approves is set in Approval rules.

2. For the company admin: set up first

Do these once, in this order, from Setup. Each has a sensible default, so only change what your company does differently.

2.1 Company profile

What: your company's name, GSTIN, address, contact and logo. Why: the logo appears next to your name at the top of every page, and the details appear on documents such as the audit PDF.

2.2 Master data

The lists everything else chooses from. All master data is saved in CAPITAL letters. Each list shows 10 rows at a time with a search box.

• Suppliers: who you buy from. Tick related party for group companies, since customs may check their prices.
• Service providers: forwarders, customs brokers, transporters. Needed to choose them on a shipment and on rate cards.
• Charge heads: kinds of charge on bills, such as air freight and customs clearance. The built-in list covers most bills; add your own if needed. Paid at actual cost means the provider passes the charge on with no margin (for example shipping line charges), so it is not compared with the quote.
• Invoice charge names: how each provider names a charge on their invoice, for example "AAI CHARGES" meaning Terminal storage. Used when a bill is read from PDF. The app learns new names by itself whenever someone corrects a charge on a read bill.
• Materials: your item codes with the correct HSN code and a 3-letter unit (PCS, KGS, NOS). If an entry declares a different HSN code, the shipment shows a warning.
• Duty rates by HSN code: duties an HSN code normally attracts, such as anti-dumping duty. If a Bill of Entry leaves one out, the shipment shows a warning. They never change the duty calculated.
• Variance reasons: the reasons people can pick when a cost differs from the quote.
• Ports and airports: shared by every company. Indian ports use the customs location code, so the sea port and the air cargo terminal are different: INMAA1 is Chennai sea, INMAA4 is Chennai air cargo.
• Exchange rates: not typed. See Exchange rates.

2.3 Importing master data from Excel

1. Open a master list and choose Import from Excel.
2. Download the template. Its second sheet explains every column and the values allowed.
3. Fill in one row per entry. Keep the first row as it is.
4. Upload it. Every row is checked with the same rules as the Add screen. If any row is wrong, nothing is imported and you see the row numbers to fix. A row whose code, or supplier name, already exists updates that entry.

2.4 Users

Add each person with their name, email (their login), 10-digit mobile and role. Leave the password empty and they get an email inviting them to sign in with a code; or set a first password and give it to them. Untick Can sign in when someone leaves, rather than deleting them, so their history stays.

2.5 Who can do what

Each department does its own job only. A table lists every job (add shipments, enter bills, award quotes, confirm receipt and so on) against every role; tick the roles allowed for each. Why: people only see the buttons for their own jobs, so nobody records something that belongs to another department. Company admins can always do everything.

2.6 Approval rules

Set who approves extra cost and from what amount, level by level. For example, level 1 Finance from 0, level 2 Company admin from 50,000. Extra cost is everything billed above the quote or contract, plus charges that were never quoted. Below every limit, a shipment is recorded as approved at once.

Every level names the people who approve it: choose the department, then tick the people in it who sign off. Everyone who can approve is emailed when it is their turn, each with a link that approves or sends back without signing in - see Approvals. If a level has nobody who can act, this screen tells you when you save.

2.6a Deleting a shipment

Only a company admin can delete a shipment: open it, then More, Delete this shipment. A page first lists everything that would go with it - cost lines, customs entries, PO lines, uploaded documents and the approval record - because all of it is deleted too and none of it can be brought back. Use it to throw away a shipment entered by mistake and start it again; to correct something, edit the shipment or the part that is wrong instead.

2.7 Company settings: each one explained

2.8 Contract rate cards

The rates you agreed with a provider, per route and period. On a shipment, More, Fill contract rates works out the contract baseline from the shipment's weight, containers or volume. If no card matches, the message links to rate cards so you can add or approve one.

2.9 Email sending

Approval requests and invitations are emailed. By default they go through the Suvis mail service, which needs no setup. To send from your own address instead:

• Gmail or Google Workspace: turn on 2-Step Verification in your Google account, create an App password, and enter your Gmail address and that app password.
• Your own mail server: enter the server, port, security, login and password your IT team gives you.
• Choose Save and send me a test email to check it. Passwords are stored encrypted and never shown again.

Sign-up and sign-in codes always come from the Suvis mail service.

2.10 Exchange rates

Exchange rates are never typed. They come from the customs exchange-rate notifications published on ICEGATE, checked every morning at 6 am. When a new notification is issued, the previous rates are end-dated and the new ones start from the notification's with effect from date; old rates are kept, so every entry uses the rate that was in force on its own date. Refresh on the Exchange rates screen checks straight away. A provider's bill keeps the exchange rate printed on the bill, because that is what you actually pay.

3. Daily work

3.1 The dashboard

Your home page: shipments in progress, what is waiting for your approval, shipments with open points, arrivals in the next 7 days and the latest shipments.

Every figure along the top is a link: click it and you get exactly the shipments it counts, with a chip naming the list you are in - click the chip to come back to all shipments. Waiting for approval opens the Approvals page.

3.2 Finding shipments

Shipments lists every shipment. Filter by status, or search by our reference, AWB, B/L, invoice number or supplier.

3.3 Adding a shipment

New shipment: reference, mode, Incoterm, supplier, forwarder, customs broker, route, cargo, goods value and the planned dates. Planned dates are fixed once saved, so a delay cannot be hidden by moving the plan.

3.4 The steps of a shipment

Every shipment shows What to do next: the steps in order, with the next one highlighted. Tick Not applicable on an optional step that does not apply, for example no arrival notice on a courier shipment, and the next step moves on.

Each step that has a document behind it carries a link to upload it: Read the supplier invoice, Read the lines from a PDF, Read the quote from a PDF, Read the arrival notice, Read the Bill of Entry, Read a bill from a PDF. The figures are read out of the PDF and shown on the step's own screen for you to check; nothing is saved until you save it, and the PDF is kept with the shipment's documents. Where nothing can be read from a document, the step offers to attach it instead, for example the waybill or the proof of delivery.

1. Shipment details: done when you add the shipment. Read the supplier invoice fills the goods value, currency, gross weight and number of packages from the invoice PDF.
2. What is in it (optional): the PO lines from the invoice and packing list, so the landed cost is split per item and a unit cost is worked out. Read the lines from a PDF takes each item off the supplier's invoice with its PO number, quantity and value, for you to check and save.
3. Quote or contract rate (optional): record the forwarders' quotes and award one, or fill contract rates from a rate card. A quotation received as a PDF can be read in the same way as a bill; say who quoted, and it is kept as its own quotation to compare side by side. Bills are checked against the awarded one.
4. Estimate (optional): your own expected cost, if you plan one.
5. Arrival notice (optional): the forwarder's advance bill. Read it from the PDF.
6. Departure and arrival: the actual dates, so delays are measured.
7. Bill of Entry (optional): choose Read the Bill of Entry from PDF, check the figures and save. Duty is calculated item by item and compared with the duty on the entry.
8. Provider bills: read each bill from its PDF, or type the lines. The same bill cannot be added twice.
9. Reasons for differences: every charge above the baseline needs a reason.
10. Send for approval: extra cost is approved at the levels your admin set. Costs are then locked; an admin can reopen for a late bill.
11. Materials received (optional): stores confirm the goods arrived in good order, or record a shortage or damage.
12. Close the shipment: when everything is billed, approved and received.

3.5 Reading bills from PDF

The same screen reads a bill, an arrival notice, a quotation and an estimate - open it from the step that needs it, and it already knows which one you mean.

More, Read a bill from PDF. Choose whether it is a bill or an arrival notice and upload it. Each charge is read with its amount, exchange rate and tax, and matched to a charge head. Tick the lines to add, choose the charge where none was found, correct any figure, and confirm. Nothing is saved before you confirm, and the PDF is kept with the shipment's documents. Scanned copies are read too, but check them closely. You are warned if the lines do not add up to the bill's total, or if the PDF does not mention the shipment.

3.6 Approvals

When the actual bills are in, Send for approval on the shipment sends them to the levels your admin set. Extra cost - everything billed above the quote or arrival notice, plus anything never quoted - is what needs approving; below every limit, the bills are simply recorded as approved.

Who approves

Each level in Setup, Approval rules names a department and the exact people in it who approve - never “anyone in the department”, so there is always a name against every decision. Choose the department first and the list shows only its people; + Add a person adds a new one without leaving the page, and they appear in the list ready to tick. The people are copied onto the approval when it is sent, so changing the rule afterwards never moves an approval that is already waiting.

If the people named on a level can no longer sign in - someone left, and their login was switched off - the rules screen says so in red every time it is opened, because shipments would otherwise wait there with nobody able to act. Name someone else and it clears.

Being told, and deciding from the email

Everyone who can approve a level is emailed the moment it reaches them. The email carries a link of their own: it opens a page showing the shipment, the landed cost, the extra cost and the charges it is made of, and it approves or sends back in one click - no sign-in needed. Each link belongs to one person, works once, stops the moment the level is decided, and expires after a fortnight. Whoever sent the shipment is emailed the outcome.

Signing in and approving on the shipment works exactly the same and is always available; the link is only a shortcut for someone who is away from their desk.

Seeing what is waiting for you

Approvals in the menu carries a count of what needs your decision, on every page, as soon as you sign in. The page behind it has three parts: waiting for you, waiting for someone else (with the names of who it waits for, so you know whom to chase), and the last twenty decided. Sending back always needs a comment, so the person who sent it knows what to fix.

3.7 Documents

Upload AWBs, B/Ls, invoices, PODs and other files to the shipment. They are private to your company.

4. Reports

Reports shows landed cost by supplier and route, freight per kg and per container, demurrage by month, customs broker clearing times, supplier on-time departures and exchange-rate impact, for any period, with an Excel download. The provider scorecard shows each forwarder's on-time arrival, billing against what was agreed, and unquoted charges.

5. Service providers

When the admin has allowed it in Company settings, and added a login for a forwarder or broker, that person sees only their own shipments. They can update dates and upload documents, and never see costs, duty or approvals.

6. For the platform owner

The platform owner (the developer) sees Platform in the menu; company admins never do. It lists every company's workspace with its people and what they have been doing. Open read-only shows a workspace exactly as its people see it, without changing anything. Switch off stops a company's people signing in. Companies never see each other's data.

The owner is also the only one who can take a login away and empty a company. Remove beside a person deletes their login; where their name is on an approval the name is kept and the login is switched off instead, so the approval record stays complete. Clear this company's data deletes every shipment with its costs, customs entries, approvals and documents, keeping the people, master data and settings - use it to clear demo or test data before a company starts for real. It asks for the company name to be typed, and it cannot be undone, so take a backup first.

Behind both sits Master data and settings at /admin/, the database itself. It has no checks and no undo, and it is for the developer only: its own manual explains every list on it.

7. Questions

An error message has a link. It opens the screen where the missing detail is set, for example rate cards or exchange rates.

Why are my entries in capitals? Master data is kept in capital letters so names match across bills and reports.

A button I need is missing. Your role is not allowed that job. Ask your company admin to tick it in Who can do what.