Logistics ERP Consultant, India

Forwarding, customs brokerage and the ICD and CFS leg

A sea export handled by an Indian forwarder can involve a surprising number of parties. The exporter's cargo is picked up from a factory, stuffed at the factory or at a container freight station, moved by road or rail to an inland container depot or directly to the port, cleared for export by a customs broker who files the shipping bill, loaded on the vessel and documented with a bill of lading. Imports run in reverse, with a bill of entry, duty payment, CFS handling and delivery.

Each party sends its own bill: CFS charges, transport, shipping line charges such as terminal handling and documentation, and the broker's agency fees. Some are your costs. Others are paid for the client and recovered later. If operations and accounts classify them differently, job profit and GST returns both suffer.

I map each service line through business analysis and produce a charge head list that states, for every line, whether it is service income, a cost to be accrued or an amount recovered from the client. Customs filing itself stays in specialist software connected to ICEGATE; the ERP receives what the filing generates financially. The Indian trading ERP page looks at the same shipment from the exporter's books.

Reimbursements, GST on services and TDS

Indian logistics invoices often carry two kinds of lines: your own services, and amounts paid on the client's behalf such as port, CFS or shipping line charges and customs duty. Whether a payment can be treated as a reimbursement outside the taxable value depends on GST conditions, commonly discussed in terms of acting as a pure agent, and on how the transaction is documented. That judgement belongs with your chartered accountant.

Once the treatment is decided, the ERP must apply it the same way every time. The design covers:

• a charge head master where each head carries its GST treatment and SAC code
• separate presentation of reimbursements on the invoice, with supporting bills attached
• a recoverable balance per client for amounts paid on their behalf
• e-invoicing for applicable invoices, generated from the job without re-keying
• TDS deducted on payments to transporters and other vendors where required
• reports that reconcile the ERP with GST returns

Rates and thresholds change, so I do not build them into the design as fixed assumptions. I make sure they are master data your accounts team can update. The testing plan includes a full month of invoices reconciled to GST returns before go-live, which I run as part of UAT.

E-way bills and multi-state 3PL warehouses

Contract logistics in India has grown alongside e-commerce and organized retail, and many 3PLs now run warehouses for brands in several states. Each state location typically has its own GST registration, so billing must come from the right registration and stock movements between states follow GST rules for those transfers.

E-way bills are a daily operational fact. When goods move by road, an e-way bill is generally needed above the prescribed value, with responsibilities that depend on who is the consignor, consignee and transporter. A 3PL dispatching on behalf of a brand needs clear rules on who generates the e-way bill, from which registration and with what details. Doing this by hand on the portal for every dispatch slows the dock and invites errors.

I design dispatch so the e-way bill is generated from the delivery document through an integration, validated against the vehicle and distance, and stored with the job. Warehouse billing follows the client's contract: storage by pallet or square feet, inward and outward handling, pick and pack, labeling, kitting and returns, priced from WMS activity. For the warehouse side in depth, see ERP for warehousing, and for fleet operators, ERP for transportation.

Overseas agents, foreign currency and job accruals

Indian forwarders rely on overseas agents at destination for exports and at origin for imports. Those relationships are usually reciprocal, with profit-share on nominated cargo and statements exchanged in dollars or euros. When agent accounts are maintained in Tally as rupee ledgers with occasional adjustments, balances drift and settlement becomes a negotiation.

I document each agent's terms and design a statement and netting routine in the agent's currency, with exchange differences and bank charges posted to the right accounts in rupees. Remittances to agents and receipts from them also need the documentation your bank and auditor expect, which I note in the requirements.

Accruals are the other half. Shipping lines and airlines often bill after the client has been invoiced, and CFS or transport bills arrive late. I define when each expected cost is accrued against the job, how actual bills are matched and how differences are handled, so profit at job closure is close to profit at invoicing. The multi-currency ERP page explains the currency design more broadly, and the logistics ERP guide covers the general job model.

Moving off Tally and working with me remotely

The common Indian setup is Tally for accounts, a freight or CHA software for operations, Excel for job profit and the GST portal for e-way bills, joined by manual entry. It works until branches multiply, a 3PL business is added or management wants profit by customer and lane each month without waiting for accountants to reconcile.

The options usually include keeping Tally and integrating it properly, moving accounts into an ERP that sits behind the freight software, or adopting an ERP with logistics extensions. I compare them through vendor selection using scripted Indian jobs: an FCL export through an ICD, an import with duty paid and reimbursements, a CHA-only job, a 3PL dispatch with an e-way bill and an agent statement in dollars.

Since India runs on one time zone, scheduling remote workshops is simple. I hold live sessions with branch heads and accounts teams, ask staff to record their screens while processing a typical job, and plan cutover away from GST return deadlines and the year-end close. The India ERP consultant page describes engagement options and the India hub gathers market notes.