Marks and Numbers and Description of Goods on Documents:
 
Within a consignment it is possible to store not only a general goods description but also a description against each tariff record. Modern custom and practice is to use the General Goods area from the invoice, as the Tariff descriptions were originally for use on documents such as HM Customs C88 entry form, which, following the introduction of NES submissions, is rarely used. However if you are to produce the NES declaration, you may wish to complete records against each tariff record within a consignment. Please fill in the dot in the box on the group headed "Which mark" on the Control tab
 
We do endeavour to stay within the United Nations  Electronic Data Interchange guidelines for field data size, the questions of marks and description of goods can be a troublesome area.  This EDI standard enables messages to be sent, in particular the new NES (National Export Consignment message to HM Customs) as well as invoice and shipping and bank instruction messages. However there may be occasions where addresses or mandated descriptions on Letters of Credit make this impossible.
 
Despite the substantial savings available to those who do, not all customers prepare their own NES messages and obviously the requirement to fulfil a Letter of Credit stipulations are paramount. We have therefore allocated an extra five lines of text to cover the extended marks and/or descriptions much loved by many openers of Letters of Credit. The system is configured to make use of that space only when there is data, so the invoice print would seem to have space for only five lines of text, but the pricing columns on the invoice will move down to make space for any additional text entered in this area.
 
In the normal course of events this is usually sufficient, but if not, or if a graphic is required, e.g. the old ideas of a green triangle, blue square etc then we have to adopt a different approach, which involves storing, within the consignment record, a file name for the graphics file created, possibly using the Microsoft Paint utility within the Windows environment, and stored in a BMP graphics file format, in the BMPDATA sub-directory off the FORMWISE directory on the network to ensure it can be shared by everyone. You will find sample files in the BMPDATA directory which are a combination of black and white or colour, the colour of the image - blue/green/red/yellow, and geometric shape - circle/diamond/rectangle/square.
 
If you wish to add a graphic to the background of the entered mark, then you will need to create a Paint file, which is 432 x 209 (Image, Attributes, Pixels). If you are using a black and white printer make the graphic a grey colour, and store the image in the BMP format. This should allow the merging of data and graphic. Incidentally you will find, in the FORMWISE\BMPDATA directory, a number of files in combinations of colour and geometric shape.
 
If you wish to use the entire marks and description area, including a graphic and text in a smaller font than we use for printing then you should be able to include much more data than the standard software. The dimensions for the Paint file are  1080 x 209 pixels.at 300dpi
 
Finally there may be a requirement for the full area of the mark, description and extended area, then you can create an image of 1080 x 400 pixels. In this case however we need to make the software create the space for the extended area and to do this you will need to place a "." at the start of the bottom line of that block.
 
Please don't forget that these files now form part of your data, and you should ensure that you, if single-user, or your network administrator, if multi-user, back up the files on a regular basis. If you need help on this please contact us on the Support line.
 
If the main problem regarding compliance with letters of credit are with regard to the amount of data to be included, then please check the page on Data Font Control for further information and alternatives.
 
There is the ability to produce one-off documents by the "Extra Documents" option, which is on the Standard panel of the EASI range, and on the Specialist panel of other systems. This allows the creation of documents which for example may have been specified by a Letter of Credit. However there is also an option on the Static files list to keep a basis for many documents, which can be called into a consignment and edited to conform to specific requirements.
 
If you need help on this please contact us on the Support line.
 

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