8 required items. Send these once and every shipment after the first is faster. This list is the one an ex-Maersk auditor signed off on — each item exists because leaving it out creates a hole a carrier's claims desk can push back through.
Ocean charges are almost never on one invoice. Missing one of these is the single biggest cause of a low-confidence audit.
Base freight, BAF and carrier-side demurrage. Establishes the carrier's own tier table.
Destination THC, agency administrative fees and local surcharges live here, not on the carrier invoice. Without it the audit runs on a partial dataset and the confidence score drops.
Terminal storage is a different party with a different day-band schedule than carrier demurrage. Needed to separate the two.
Turns 'this charge looks high' into 'this charge was not in the contract'. Also exposes lanes won on a headline rate and recovered through surcharges.
On imports the clock runs discharge-complete to gate-out. Gate-in is an export event and will be rejected.
Start of the import demurrage clock.
End of the clock. Per-container, not per-bill.
Terminal systems lag carrier events by up to a day, enough to shift a container across a tier boundary.
Detention runs past gate-out; without this the detention portion cannot be tested.
Reefers price on their own schedule at roughly 1.5–2x dry. Reefers billed on the dry table is a common, recoverable error.
Ties the charges to the shipment, the parties and the incoterm.
Decides which clock basis applies.
A carrier's claims desk rejects unsupported exclusions first. Supply these up front or the line is flagged as evidence outstanding.
Required to suspend the clock for a customs hold.
Crane outages and terminal stoppages need an official notice, not a news article.
Paraphrased tariff language gets claims bounced. It has to be quoted exactly.
Justifies or contests shifting and restow charges.