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Products, Parcels and Lots

By far, the most important part of a sufficient setup of a record keeping is the so-called Parcel / Lot administration.

Customs is all about Products. Please let that sink in.

Yes, Products are transported with a means of Transportation or are stored and blended in tanks. But without Product, no need for MoT's to transport Product or Tanks to store and blend. So the starting point should always be the Products.

No Product, no business!


A Product is defined as a physical substance or article. Something you can physically identify, point at or pick up. The Product is the thing that Operations deal with to Move or to apply a Service to, such as homogenizing.

A Product is defined as a physical substance or article


In the case of piece goods, you can easily keep them apart. For example, when your receive a car component, such as a steering wheel, you can have a 'top shelf' where you store steering wheels brought in from outside the EU (referred to as having a non-Union customs status (commonly referred to as Bonded or T1) and a 'bottom shelf' where you store steering wheels coming from the free circulation of the EU (referred to as having a Union customs status) (commonly referred to as T2). The same thing applies to the origin of the Products. One steering wheel coming from the US, the other coming from Germany. You could add labels to the steering wheels. A Product is registered by Trade name and Commodity code.
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With bulk products this is not possible. That means it should be recorded in the record keeping and the data is tracked by accounting segregation.??

A Parcel is the registration of a Product with certain administrative characteristics. For example, a Parcel has a:

  1. Customs Status (non-Union (T1 Bonded) or Union (T2);
  2. Origin;
  3. A value;
  4. Etc... 
Let's say we receive gasoil originating from the US, which is discharged into a Tank containing gasoil originating from the EU. After discharge, the Tank contains Gas oil (Product). The Tank contains two Parcels, namely an x quantity of Gas oil originating from the US and an x quantity of Gas oil originating from the EU. Physically segregating these Parcels is practically undoable, therefore the registration of a Parcel allows for the application of accounting segregation and tracking of the Products as received. For compliance purposes it is critical to provide for an audit trail, which requires a sufficient Parcel administration.

A Parcel is the registration of a Product with certain administrative characteristics



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