Commercial services offer several benefits, including smoother customs processes, faster delivery times based on reduced clearance delays and greater transparency for your customers as they allow you to account for duties and taxes upfront. This helps eliminate unexpected charges upon delivery, improving the overall customer experience and reducing the risk of refused shipments or returns.
To find out more about commercial services, please visit Royal Mail’s International commercial service user guide or the Parcelforce Export services user guide.
This guide explains how to process commercial export orders in the Click & Drop UI, via Spreadsheet import, Click & Drop Desktop and Click & Drop API.
Delivery terms
You will need to specify a delivery term when you apply postage to your order. The available delivery terms are:
- DTP - Delivered Taxes Paid: For business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) shipments using HVD or ERA/ER1/ER2/ER3 commercial services.
- IOSS DTP - Import One Stop Shop, Delivered Taxes Paid: For B2C shipments using HVD or ERA/ER1/ER2/ER3 commercial services, where the declared value is under £135. Requires an IOSS number.
Commercial invoices
The process of uploading your own commercial invoices differs based on the import method you are using, these are described in more detail in the sections below.
If you do not wish to upload your own invoices, Click & Drop can generate commercial invoices for your shipments, but in order to do this an image of your logo and a signature will be needed, to ensure your invoices are branded appropriately.
To upload a logo and signature, please go to Settings/Trading names and scroll down to the Branding section.
Supported file types: APNG, BMP, GIF, ICO, JFIF, JPE, JPEG, JPG, PNG
Logo Max 2 MB, 2000 x 500 px
Signature Max 1 MB, 800 x 200 px
Please note: Commercial invoices are not required to be printed and affixed to shipment packages as they will be sent electronically to Royal Mail for access by customs authorities. As a result of this, a commercial export PDF will not be provided as part of label generation by default.
How to apply postage to a commercial order
When you select a commercial export service at the Apply Postage stage, additional sections appear for you to complete. These sections are described below.
Importer details
The importer details you can enter are:
• Importer business name
• Importer contact name
• Importer VAT number
• Importer EORI number
• Importer email address
• Importer phone number
• Importer address line 1, 2, and 3
• Importer city
• Importer postcode
• Importer country
• Importer is a business — this is used to determine whether the shipment is B2B or B2C
If the importer is the same as the recipient, click the ‘Use recipient details’ button to pre-fill the importer fields automatically.
Product information
When adding package contents to an international order, four additional fields are shown in the package contents section for each item:
• Origin preference — select Yes if the goods qualify for preferential tariff treatment under a trade agreement (such as the UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement). Only applicable where the goods' Country of Origin is the United Kingdom
• Supplementary units — enter a quantity if required by the customs commodity code (optional)
• Licence number — enter a relevant export or import licence number if applicable (optional)
• Certificate number — enter a relevant certificate number if applicable (optional)
How to upload a commercial invoice
Commercial export shipments require a commercial invoice, a standard CN customs document is not used for these shipments. Click & Drop will generate a commercial invoice for you automatically, or you can upload your own.
To upload your own invoice, go to the order details page and select Upload documents.
This option is only available while the order is in the New state i.e. before applying postage (not during Apply postage or afterwards). Selecting it opens a modal where you can drag and drop a PDF onto the commercial invoice or supporting document field for each package or click the field to browse for a file. Hover over a package number in the modal to see that package's contents, so you can check you're attaching the correct invoice.
If you upload your own commercial invoice, you will also need to provide:
• Commercial invoice number
• Commercial invoice date — defaults to today's date, but you can change it. Changing the date on one invoice updates it for every invoice on the order, as they must all share the same date
You can also attach supporting documentation (such as certificates of origin or packing lists) - this is optional and can be provided for some, all or none of the packages.
All uploaded files must be in PDF format and must not exceed 2 MB.
How to import commercial orders and invoices via spreadsheet
If you are currently using HVD/ERA/ER1/ER2/ER3 services, you will need to start providing additional data in order for these shipments to continue being processed. The minimum additional data that needs to be provided is a Transaction type and a Commercial invoice document. You can read more about them below.
If you import orders using a spreadsheet, you can include commercial export data by mapping the following columns in your spreadsheet:
Order data
• Delivery term - DTP or IOSS_DTP
Importer data
• Importer business name
• Importer contact name
• Importer VAT number
• Importer EORI number
• Importer email address
• Importer phone number
• Importer address line 1, 2, and 3
• Importer city
• Importer postcode
• Importer country
• Importer is a business — this is used to determine the transaction type of the shipment (B2B or B2C)
Product data
• Origin preference – select Yes if the goods qualify for preferential tariff treatment under a trade agreement (such as the UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement). Only applicable where the goods' Country of Origin is the United Kingdom. Defaults to No if value not provided
• Supplementary units — enter a quantity if required by the customs commodity code
• Licence number — enter a relevant export or import licence number if applicable
• Certificate number — enter a relevant certificate number if applicable
Documentation
• Commercial invoice — the URL of the commercial invoice PDF file
• Commercial invoice number — required if a commercial invoice URL is provided
• Commercial invoice date — defaults to today's date if not provided
• Supporting document — the URL of any supporting documentation PDF file
Example of a spreadsheet containing commercial export documentation:
Please note:
- If you do not provide the importer address and details for a commercial shipment, the recipient’s address and details will be used as importer details in documentation and customs forms
- All uploaded files must be in PDF format and must not exceed 2 MB
- The Commercial invoice and Supporting document URLs you provide must point to a publicly accessible web server — they cannot point to a privately hosted server (for example, one that requires a login, VPN, or internal network access)
- For orders with multiple packages, an invoice should be uploaded for each package
- If you do not upload commercial invoices, Click & Drop will generate them for you. Please note, a logo and signature must be provided in Settings/Trading names for an invoice to be generated by Click & Drop.
How to import commercial orders and invoices via Click & Drop Desktop
If you are currently using HVD/ERA/ER1/ER2/ER3 services, you will need to start providing additional data in order for these shipments to continue being processed. The minimum additional data that needs to be provided is a Transaction type and a Commercial invoice document.
Any new data fields must first be mapped using spreadsheet import. For more information on these fields, please read the How to import commercial export orders via spreadsheet section above.
How to import commercial orders and invoices via the Click & Drop API
You can create commercial export orders using the Click & Drop Public API. For details regarding the API fields, please check the API developer specification.
If you are currently using HVD/ERA/ER1/ER2/ER3 services via the API, you will need to start providing additional data in order for these shipments to continue being processed. The minimum additional data that needs to be provided is a Transaction type and a Commercial invoice document. You can read more about them below.
Order data
Delivery term must be provided in deliveryTerm field. Commercial services support DTP and IOSS_DTP delivery terms.
Importer data
Can be provided in the importer object on the POST/orders call. If no importer details are provided, recipient address and details will be used as importer details in documentation and customs forms.
Transaction type
A transaction type must be declared for commercial shipments. If isABusiness is set to true in the importer object, then transaction type will be declared as B2B, and if isABusiness is false it will be B2C.
Please note, if an importer object is not passed, then isRecipientABusiness value will be used to determine the transaction type.
Product data
useOriginPreference, supplementaryUnits, licenseNumber and certificateNumber can be populated for commercial orders, but these fields are optional. If useOriginPreference is not provided, it will default to false.
Documentation
Commercial invoice and supporting document can be uploaded for each package on the order. These must be base64 encoded, in PDF format and under 2MB in size.
Commercial invoice number and commercial invoice date should be provided if uploading your own invoice.
If you do not upload commercial invoices, Click & Drop will generate them for you. Please note, a logo and signature must be provided in Settings/Trading names for an invoice to be generated by Click & Drop.