Senda · Accounting
Every landed cost,
booked once.
Senda estimates what each shipment costs to land and sends each charge to your QuickBooks Online company or Xero organisation as its own bill, booked to the account you chose. Duty and fees, freight, brokerage: one bill each, numbered once.
Send the same shipment again and the bills already in your books are skipped. Approving, paying and reconciling stay where they belong, in your accounting software.
Accounting bills come with the Operations and Enterprise plans. Connecting and sending need a workspace admin.
- Sent to
- QuickBooks Online as bills · Xero as drafts
- Booked to
- Your own accounts, named once in Settings → Accounting
- Repeats
- Skipped by bill number, however many times you send
- Or as a file
- Bills in QuickBooks Online's or Xero's own import columns
- Plans
- Operations and Enterprise
Fig. 1 · The posting sheet
What arrives in your books.
One shipment, five bills. Each is owed to a different party, so each books on its own, to the account you set for that kind of cost, under a number that belongs to that shipment and that charge.
Fig. 2 · Sent again
Sent again, nothing doubles.
A shipment is re-estimated as its facts firm up, and a month gets sent more than once. Each bill's number comes from the shipment and the charge, never from the estimate, so a second send finds the bill already there and leaves it alone.
Reporting says5 bills were already in Xero, so they weren't sent again.
On every bill
What every bill carries.
A bill a bookkeeper has never seen Senda should still be able to read, book and query. Each one arrives with the same six things.
One bill per charge, owed to one party
Duty and fees, freight, insurance and brokerage are typically owed to different parties, so each landed-cost charge on a shipment becomes its own single-line bill rather than one bill with everything on it.
Your accounts, not ours
Settings → Accounting holds the account each kind of cost books to. A bill whose account QuickBooks Online doesn't have is refused with that reason, never booked somewhere else; one that reaches Xero without its account is named on Reporting, so you know which draft to fix.
A number that can only land once
Each bill's number comes from the shipment and the charge. Send again, or import the file again, and a bill already in the books under that number is skipped rather than booked twice.
Marked as an estimate
The amounts are what Senda worked out for the shipment, not an invoice a vendor sent. Every bill's memo says so and asks you to confirm the amount before paying.
Drafts in Xero, bills in QuickBooks Online
Xero receives drafts for someone there to review and approve. QuickBooks Online has no drafts, so a bill Senda sends is a bill at once, with the vendor found by name or created.
Or a file, if you'd rather import
Bills for QuickBooks and Bills for Xero, in the Reporting page's menu, download the same bills in each product's documented bill-import columns, numbered the same way.
On the shipment
Never twice starts before the books.
The bills come from a shipment whose costs Senda already keeps in order, so what reaches the bookkeeper has been checked once on the way.
One ledger per shipment
Every charge on a shipment sits in one ledger, with three things flagged: a charge still not billed on after your company's threshold, a demurrage or detention charge whose billed period starts inside the container's free time, and a charge with no line in the shipment's saved landed-cost estimate.
The same invoice can't slip in twice
When a charge's biller and invoice number match one your company recorded in the last twelve months, Senda stops and shows the earlier charge, with its shipment, amount and the day it was received, before adding it again.
Paid beside estimated
When the customs entry is recorded against the shipment, the duty paid under each authority sits beside Senda's estimate with the difference, so the estimate bill and the real one can be reconciled line by line.
The invoices that arrive
The real invoice, file and all.
The invoices a carrier, broker, trucker or terminal actually sent are recorded on the shipment's charges. Those reach QuickBooks Online too, as themselves.
Sent as the bill it is
The biller becomes the vendor, found by name or created; their invoice number is the bill number, the day it arrived the bill date, and the amount and currency are as recorded. Each kind of charge books to the account you set, including demurrage, detention and storage, and the landside costs an estimate has no line for.
The file goes with it
When the charge cites an uploaded invoice, the file is attached to the bill, so whoever approves it in QuickBooks Online reads the invoice itself rather than a retyped line.
Named when it can't go, never sent twice
A charge missing the biller, the number or the arrival date, or still disputed, says what it needs. A charge already sent isn't offered again, a bill already in your books under the same vendor and number is recorded rather than booked again, and Check payments reads paid, part paid or unpaid back from QuickBooks.
The other direction
Bill the customer from the same charges.
Choose the open charges to pass on, each at cost or at the amount you enter, and Senda creates one invoice for the shipment's customer in QuickBooks Online.
One invoice, in your books
QuickBooks Online receives an invoice with one line per charge, sold as a service item against the income account you set in Settings → Accounting. The customer is found by name or created, and one invoice holds one currency.
Numbered before it leaves
Each invoice has its number before the first send and is looked up before anything is created, so sending again finds the invoice already there and records it. A charge sits on one invoice at most.
The charges follow
The charges billed are marked billed on with the invoice number in their note, so the cost recovery report below shows what came back.
On Reporting
What each shipment cost, and what came back.
Of the charges recorded on your shipments in a date range, how much was billed on to customers, absorbed, disputed or is still open, in each currency and never converted.
Per currency, per customer, per shipment
The same figures roll up three ways, with demurrage, detention and storage on a line of their own, so what was passed on and what was absorbed is read in one place.
Open past your threshold
A charge still open after the number of days your company sets is counted on its own, by customer and by shipment, so the oldest unbilled costs are the first thing you see.
Moves as the work moves
Mark a charge billed on and its amount moves from Open to Billed on at once, in the totals and on its shipment's row. Reporting comes with the Operations and Enterprise plans.
How it connects
Set up once, send when you close.
Five steps, four of them one-time. A workspace admin does the connecting and the sending.
Name your accounts
In Settings → Accounting, enter the account each kind of landed cost books to: import duty, Section 301 and Section 232 duty, antidumping and countervailing duty, the Merchandise Processing Fee and the Harbor Maintenance Fee, freight, insurance and customs brokerage. Xero takes your account code; QuickBooks Online takes the account's name.
Connect your company or organisation
On the same page, a workspace admin chooses Connect QuickBooks Online or Connect Xero, signs in there, and picks the one company or organisation Senda should send to.
Send from Reporting
Choose the dates and pick Send bills to QuickBooks or Send bills to Xero from the page's menu. Every landed-cost charge saved on a shipment in those dates arrives as its own bill, and one already there is skipped.
Check them in your books
In Xero, the drafts wait to be reviewed and approved. In QuickBooks Online each is a bill at once. Either way, confirm the amount against the real invoice before paying.
Disconnect when you choose
Disconnect on Settings → Accounting, and Senda's access is revoked at Intuit or at Xero.
Where it stops
What it is, and what it isn't.
A bookkeeper's trust is cheaper to earn with the bounds than with the features, so here they are, in the same type as everything else.
Senda keeps no general ledger. It sends bills; approving, paying and reconciling them happens in QuickBooks Online or Xero.
An estimate bill's amount is an estimate until you confirm it against the real invoice, and its memo says so. The invoice itself, once recorded on the shipment, goes to QuickBooks Online as its own bill with the file attached.
Nothing posts on its own. A workspace admin sends from Reporting or from the shipment's Charges card, for what they choose, and can send again without doubling anything.
No tax code is written on any bill. Senda computes none, and leaves it to your import or to your bookkeeper.
Xero receives drafts to approve. QuickBooks Online has no drafts, so a bill Senda sends is a bill at once.
Core doesn't include it. Accounting bills come with the Operations and Enterprise plans.
Questions
What people ask us.
Does Senda post to my books on its own?
No. A workspace admin opens Reporting, chooses the dates and sends. Nothing reaches QuickBooks Online or Xero until someone does that, and sending the same dates again skips every bill that is already there.
What happens if the same bills are sent twice?
Each bill's number comes from the shipment and the charge, so a second send finds it in your books and skips it. Reporting tells you how many were already there. The same is true of the import file: the numbers are the same, so a repeat import is flagged rather than booked.
Which account does each charge go to?
The one you name in Settings → Accounting, for each kind of cost: import duty, Section 301 and Section 232 duty, antidumping and countervailing duty, the Merchandise Processing Fee and the Harbor Maintenance Fee, freight, insurance and customs brokerage. QuickBooks Online matches the account's name, and refuses a bill whose account it doesn't have rather than booking it somewhere else. Xero matches your account code, and a draft that arrives without one is named on Reporting.
Are these the real invoices?
Both. The bills from Reporting are Senda's landed-cost estimates, one per charge, and every memo says so: confirm each against the invoice the vendor sent. The invoices that do arrive are recorded on the shipment's Charges card, and those go to QuickBooks Online as themselves, the biller as the vendor, their invoice number as the bill number, the file attached.
Can we bill our customer from the same charges?
Yes, in QuickBooks Online. On the shipment's Charges card, choose the open charges to pass on, at cost or at the amount you enter, and Senda creates one invoice for the shipment's customer, numbered before it leaves and found rather than booked again if it is sent twice. The charges are marked billed on with the invoice number.
Can we use it without connecting anything?
Yes. Bills for QuickBooks and Bills for Xero, in the Reporting page's menu, download the same bills as a file in each product's documented bill-import columns, for you to import by hand.
Who can connect it, and how do we stop?
A workspace admin connects, sends and disconnects, all from Settings → Accounting and Reporting. Disconnecting revokes Senda's access at Intuit or at Xero.
Which plan is it on?
The Operations and Enterprise plans, where Reporting lives. Core doesn't include it.
Start with your real workflow
See one shipment land as bills.
Tell us how your team closes the month today. We'll walk one shipment from estimate to bill with you before anything is signed.