The core: your end-to-end trade process
VAT, customs and paperwork problems are symptoms. The cause is usually a process nobody designed: steps that grew one shipment at a time, data retyped between systems, and documents that depend on who remembers what. We structure the whole thing.
What we deliver:
- A map of your current flow, from order confirmation to VAT return, built from your real documents and systems.
- The redesigned process: each step, who owns it, and the document and data it produces.
- The data each order must carry to be treated correctly (destination, customer type, VAT number, Incoterm), and where it is captured.
- Handover points with your suppliers, forwarders, customers and advisers: who sends what, to whom, when.
- An evidence file per shipment that fills itself, and a monthly data pack your advisers can work from.
- A one-page procedure your team can follow from day one.
The three services below are the parts of that process where the money and the risk sit.
VAT, sales tax and duties, country by country
Every country you trade with has its own rules: VAT, GST or sales tax, import duties, and whether a business that isn't established there needs a local fiscal or tax representative. We analyse each one from your own data. Our focus markets are the UK, the EU, the USA and South Africa. For other countries, we research each one specifically for your engagement.
In the EU, for example, if you own goods there and sell them on, you usually need an EU VAT number. If you're not established in the EU, that means a fiscal representative, and they will ask for security.
What we deliver:
- Whether you need to register, and where, for VAT, GST or sales tax, evidenced from your own documents.
- The tax genuinely at risk in your flows, including any consumer sales.
- Duties for each destination: tariff classification, origin and preferential rates under trade agreements, and the duty cost built into your cash and pricing picture.
- The supplier-VAT cycle: how much cash goes out, how long it's away, and the structure and filing frequency that bring it back fastest.
- Where a fiscal representative is required, the forms of security compared: bond, guarantee, the representative's own risk acceptance, cash.
- An evidence pack that presents your business to representatives as the low risk it is.
- A shortlist of fiscal or tax representatives, introductions, and negotiation on your behalf.
- A step-by-step registration roadmap, so you can prepare your side in parallel.
Customs-ready trade documents
Your customers should see your brand. Customs needs to see the facts. Both are possible at once.
What we deliver:
- Commercial invoices for EU business customers, exports and consumer sales, set up in your accounting software.
- A packing list and delivery note that keep your manufacturer off everything the customer receives.
- Exporter-of-record guidance: who goes in which box, with which identifier.
- A one-page procedure: which document, when, and who hands what to whom.
Shipping and export set-up
Who books the freight decides which sale is VAT-free. Most businesses find out the hard way.
What we deliver:
- Incoterms and transport arrangements reviewed against your VAT position.
- The proof of delivery you need to keep, and how to make it arrive automatically.
- US orders: DDP or DAP, and who acts as importer.
- Forwarder handover points, so supplier paperwork never reaches your customer.
Also available, priced separately
- Selecting and briefing your freight forwarders.
- Implementation support once your representative is appointed.
- Duty relief reviews, such as US first-sale valuation, where they may apply.
We provide strategy, documents, introductions and negotiation. We don't act as your customs broker, declarant, or fiscal or tax representative, and we don't file returns or declarations. Your appointed advisers do, and we brief them.