Bills by e-mail

You can e-mail a master bill of lading and its house bills to SCMTR and get back the Sea Cargo Manifest Checklist drafted from them, without opening the app. Where the bills leave out something only you know — which CFS the boxes go to, a consignee's PAN — one short page asks you, and the checklist follows the moment you answer. A person in your organisation then approves the checklist in SCMTR and the draft CSN opens, ready to check, sign and send as any other filing. This page covers what to send, what comes back, what you are asked, and what is kept.

Where do I send the bills?

The bills address is shown in Settings, under Bills by e-mail, once SCMTR has switched the feature on for your organisation and an admin has ticked May file by e-mail for you (Settings → Team). Where it is not on, the address is not shown and an e-mail to it gets a short reply saying so, once a week at most.

Attach the bills as PDF files — the master bill of lading and its house bills, as the shipping line or forwarder issued them. Not a photo pasted into a document, and not a screenshot.Up to 40 files in one e-mail, each up to 10 MB, and the whole e-mail under 15 MB. A file past either limit is named in the reply, with why; send it again under the limit, in a new e-mail. An e-mail over 15 MB in all is not read at all — split the bills over two e-mails.Send from the address you sign in with. That is how the checklist knows whose it is.Write what you know in the e-mail. Forwarders write the CFS ("Container movement: INMAA1XYZ1"), "DPD", or the consignee's PAN in the e-mail, and SCMTR reads it: a value is used only when it really is in your e-mail, word for word, and anything undecided — "DPD + CFS", "as per consignee" — is asked, never guessed. A CFS's code is read on the same line as its name, or on a line of its own beside it ("CFS CODE : INCCU1XYZ1") when it is the only CFS code your e-mail writes. The PAN or GSTIN written beside a CFS's name is the CFS's own; one SCMTR's lists know as a CFS operator's or a transhipper's is never written as a consignee's.Name the master bill when you send house bills alone — "MBL NO : …" in the subject or the body. A subject that simply lists the bills, the master first and then its house bills ("… // MASTER // HBL1 // HBL2 // HBL3"), is read too, where two or more house bills are numbered in one run and one number stands alone before them: that number is taken as the master's and shown to you on the questions page, beside the date it asks for. Anything less clear is asked.

What comes back?

Every reply answers under your own subject, in the same conversation, so the three e-mails sit together in your inbox.

Each e-mail shows where your bills are in the four steps — bills received, your answers, checklist, approve in SCMTR — and says what happens next.

What am I asked?

Only what neither the bills nor your e-mail settled, and only what you would know:

Where the containers go after discharge — a CFS (searched by name or code, every CFS at the port listed), direct port delivery (DPD), or an inland depot (ICD, searched by city or name). Your usual CFS at that port, and where each consignee's earlier bills went, are offered first. When your e-mail says "DPD + CFS as per consignee", the page asks exactly that, consignee by consignee. "I'm not sure" is always there: SCMTR's team confirms the destination with you or the line before anything is filed.A consignee's or notify party's PAN, GSTIN or IEC — when no bill prints one and no earlier filing of yours has it. Any of the three will do; a mistyped one is caught on the page by its check character. "I don't have it" leaves it for SCMTR's team.The master bill's number and date — only when the e-mail carried house bills alone.

What is never asked: the CFS operator's PAN and bond, the shipping line's PAN, the container agent, the ship's VCN. Those are SCMTR's to fill, from its own lists and from customs' record.

What is filled in for you, and marked to check

Every value the checklist writes says where it came from — the bill, your e-mail, your answer, or a lookup — and a lookup is always marked to be looked at. The lookups that matter most:

The shipping line's agent goes in as the consolidator PAN of the master bill and as the container agent on every box: your own accepted filings for that line at that port settle it; where you have none, what other filers on SCMTR filed for the same line's bills at that port — a line agent's PAN only, never another filer's own PAN or a party's. On a straight bill with no house bills, the container agent is your own PAN, as on every accepted straight filing. Where nothing settles it, the box is left blank and the checklist says so.Each container's size code, from the size the bill prints (40HC, 20'GP), in the code your own accepted filings use for that kind of box — organisations differ between 2200 and 2210 for a 20-ft box, and between 4400, 4410 and 4510 for a 40-ft high cube — or the code that means the print where you have no habit yet. A habit is at least four boxes on two bills or more: your first one or two bills never decide it.A bill consigned "to order" or to a bank names no importer in its consignee box, so the first notify party in India is written as the consignee and the next one in India as the notify party. Where the notify box lists the same company twice — its registered office and its warehouse, in either order — the warehouse is the consignee and the office the notify party, as every such bill on record was filed; a bank listed beside the importer is never the notify party. A pre-printed heading such as "CONSIGNEE (TO ORDER)" above a real company and address does not make a bill "to order". The checklist says when it has done any of this.A notify party abroad cannot carry the Indian PAN, GSTIN or IEC the field takes, so the consignee is written as the notify party and the sheet says so.The goods description is the goods: the carrier's clauses in front ("SHIPPER'S LOAD & COUNT", "SAID TO CONTAIN", "1X20'DC CONTAINER S.T.C.", "CY TO CY") and the paperwork behind (HS code, P.O. and invoice numbers, shipment instructions) are left off, and a container line printed in the marks column is not a mark. The bill's own stamp printed across the cargo box — "ORIGINAL", "COPY", "NON-NEGOTIABLE COPY", "SURRENDERED" — is not goods either; a description that merely contains the word ("ORIGINAL SPARE PARTS", "FORMS IN TRIPLICATE") keeps it. Where the marks column prints only "AS PER COMMERCIAL INVOICE" (or "AS PER PACKING LIST") and the reading put it at the head of the goods, it is written as the marks and left off the goods.A count written in words ("ONE CONTAINER", "SAY TWENTY-EIGHT CARTONS ONLY") is read as the number; a total box that counts containers rather than packages never gives the package kind — the description's count and kind are taken, and the sheet says so.The ship's VCN is the call at your port of entry on this voyage: the first one customs lists on or after the day the bills say the cargo was shipped, and not more than a week past. Customs keeps a regular caller's earlier calls listed too, and those are passed over. Where the line's own tracking gives the cargo's arrival, that day picks the call instead: the one customs lists within a week of it (five days where the bills give no shipped date), clearly nearer than any other, and never one dated before the cargo was shipped. Where no call fits yet — or two fit and nothing tells them apart — the VCN is left blank.A party's state and postcode come from its own box: a GSTIN first, then the state's name, then a PIN, then — for a large city printed without any of them ("…ROAD, JAIPUR") — the city's own state. A postal zone written "MUMBAI - 51" is written as the PIN 400051, and marked. A six-digit postcode is not read as an Indian PIN where the box itself names another country.A bill printing several HS codes is drafted as one item, the way such a bill is filed: the first code the bill names, the bill's whole package count and type, and the goods lines' own description where they share one — the bill's goods description where they read differently. The other codes are listed in a note on the checklist — and so is a value printed where the code goes that holds figures no code was read from ("… (MIXER) 8479.90.90 (PARTS)", a twelve-digit run) — so nothing printed is dropped unseen; to declare them as items of their own, add them in the full form — each then needs its own count, and the counts must add up to the bill's. Where the goods lines print a count that is not the bill's total, the item takes the bill's total and the checklist says so; where the bill prints no package total of its own (or only its containers), the lines' count in one kind is the bill's and the item's alike, and marked. A bill printing no HS code still has its item's description and count filled, leaving the code to type.The shipping line's PAN goes on the master and on every container of a consolidation. Where the master's number carries the line's letters (ONEY…, MEDU…) the line is known from it; where it carries none — a Maersk waybill of nine digits, a TS Lines number of twelve — the line the bill names as its issuer is taken, and that line's PAN from the line list. Marked to check.A container's size is written as the line files it where the line's consolidations agree on one code — a 20-ft box as 2210 under every line that files one way — since the line's manifest is what the box is compared with; otherwise as the size table reads the print ("20 DRY 8'6" is a 20-ft dry box, "40 DRY 9'6" a high cube).One bill sent as two files — the bill and its attached sheet of containers — is read as one bill: the containers from the sheet, the ports, parties and date from the bill.A bill whose total counts its containers ("SAY ONE CONTAINER ONLY") takes its package count from the containers' own lines where each prints one, in one kind ("…/32 PALLETS/…").House bills are listed in the order of their numbers, whatever order they were attached in.A master bill that prints no date (a draft, usually) takes the date all its house bills carry, and one whose date is printed in figures only ("03/10/2026") is read the way its house bills' dates allow. Both are marked — check them against the master bill the line releases.The mode of transport is sea on every CSN, so it is written without asking.

How do I answer?

On the page the e-mail links to. No sign-in is needed; it checks each answer as you type and builds the checklist the moment you press the button. The link works for 14 days and belongs to the person the bills were e-mailed from — do not forward it, since it shows the whole sheet.Signed in, on the checklist's page in SCMTR. The questions e-mail carries that link too, so a colleague can answer instead.Not by e-mail. A reply with your answers in the text gets a fresh link to the page (the earlier one stops working), once an hour at most. Attach new bills to a new e-mail, not to a reply.

If nobody answers before the link runs out, the checklist is built anyway from the bills alone and e-mailed with a note saying so. SCMTR's team confirms what is missing before anything is filed.

What does approving do?

Nothing is filed by e-mail. A person with May file by e-mail opens the checklist in SCMTR, checks it against the documents as they always do, and approves it; the draft CSN opens in the guided steps where it can, otherwise in the full form, with the bills you e-mailed docked beside it so every value can be read against its source, and it is checked, signed and sent the usual way. Any checklist not yet decided — still reading, waiting on its questions, or one that could not be read — can be closed from the same page.

A second e-mail about the same master bill closes the first one's open questions, so one shipment never has two sets waiting.

What is kept, and who reads it?

The files are kept as every upload is, for two years after SCMTR last receives them (see What e-mail does SCMTR send me? and the privacy policy).The checklist — what was read off the bills, your e-mail's own text, the questions and your answers — is kept for the same two years, then deleted.The bills and the e-mail's text are read by AI models to draft the checklist: Google's Gemini reads each bill and your e-mail, and a second model (normally Anthropic's Claude) reads each bill again to check its critical values (bill and container numbers, seals, counts, weights, party codes) against the first. The privacy policy says where each runs. They are sent to the models only to be read; SCMTR keeps the result, not the models. Every value still has to be checked by you before the filing is signed.

Why didn't I get a reply?

The feature is not on for your organisation, or May file by e-mail is not ticked for you — the reply saying so goes once a week, not on every e-mail.The e-mail came from an address SCMTR does not know. Send from the one you sign in with.Nothing PDF-shaped was attached, or every file was over the limit — the reply names each.You belong to more than one organisation with the feature on. Write to support@scmtr.io naming the one to file under.You have not yet accepted SCMTR's terms. SCMTR keeps the files it reads, and keeps nothing for an account that has not accepted the terms that say so: sign in once, accept them, and send again.The e-mail was sent by a machine — an auto-reply, a forwarding rule that re-sends our own reply. Such e-mails (Auto-Submitted) are not read, so a loop between two mailboxes cannot start.The reading could not be finished on SCMTR's side. You are told so; the files are kept, and the team is told. Send the bills again if you hear nothing within a working day.

Related

Checking files by e-mail — the other mailbox: a CSN or ICEGATE's reply, checkedWhat e-mail does SCMTR send me? — every message and why you got itTranshippers, CFSs and bonds — what SCMTR fills for a CFS you nameParty codes and PANs — PAN, GSTIN and IEC, and the check characterUsing SCMTR — approving opens the same filing form as any other draft