The transition to paperless trade and commerce aare vital for all companies. The battle to have e-invoicing used by all types and sizes of companies is well known with governments often forcing the pace in their own countries. The battle to digitise global trade is much more complex involving different jurisdictions, a whole series of differing business practices and many other local differences. The slow roll-out of the BPO is testament to the difficulties, e.g. the first UK Bank Payment Obligation live transaction was proudly announced this week by Commerzbank London and UniCredit FOUR years after the scheme was launched. 

Many banks and service providers have been trying to digitise the whole process for decades with some success, but not a lot. It was inevitable, finally we are seeing companies tackle parts of global trade, rather than the whole process at once, AND critically make the process platform independent. 

essDocs’s fastest path to paperless trade

essDocs, who offer a complete end-to-end process which requires the entire physical and financial trade chain to be signed up, are breaking down the paperless trade goal into manageable phases:

1. digitizing the creation of docs (whether paper and/or electronic)
2. digitizing the approval of draft documents
3. digitizing presentation of docs to banks
4. digitizing the transmission of eDocs through the end-to-end supply chain, etc.

essDocs have found that if companies focus on just the eCreate phase, for example, they can digitize and standardize 100% of their global export processes overnight.  Or at least over a few weeks, if exporting from a number of countries. 

essDOCS now provide CargoDocs DocPrep+ a powerful document preparation solution which combines a versatile web-based solution with their CargoDocs user network.

DocPrep+ can be used to create Sales of Goods Contracts (either as paper or eDocs).  It can be used to create letter of credit drafts.  The data from this draft template can in turn be submitted via the Collaboration Portal in DocPrep+ to the applicant’s bank electronically.  In turn the exporter can receive letter of credit data (based on the issued L/C) from its bank and use that as a basis to draft or to compare with the data in the drafted documents in DocPrep+.  It can be integrated directly with the corporate’s ERP system, e.g., SAP, to create the full set of shipping and trade documents for exporting any cargo and in any trade.  The user can send a digital shipping instruction to any container line on the INTTRA network.

Enabling collaboration with any party

Most importantly, DocPrep+ allows collaboration with any party, irrespective of whether they are signed up to CargoDocs or not.  This streamlines the approval process for all shipping and trade documents such as the Sale of Goods Contract, Purchase Order, Commercial Invoice, Mates Receipt, Bill of Lading, Cargo Manifest, Inspection Certificate and more. 

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CTMfile take: Adopting essDocs’ CargoDocs DocPrep+ is a logical first step for almost any company.  It provides a quick ROI, and sets the company up to move quickly down the path to paperless trade whenever they are ready.