What is the purpose of the field 'Customer' on a shipment?

The customer is the orderer of the shipment, regardless of incoterms and movement. The purpose of the field is to default activity types, tariffs and invoice recipient depending on its value.

To achieve that, each order/shipment is divided into the following segments:

Pre-Carriage

All order types with charges, which can be maintained in Activity types, until segment Main Carriage are included:

Pick up
Delivery to Export Gateway
Security Measure
Export Handling
Export Customs
Delivery to Terminal

Main Carriage

The main carriage consists of the following order types:

Main Carriage Air
Main Carriage Sea
Main Carriage Road

On-Carriage

All order types with charges, which can be maintained in Activity types, from segment Main Carriage on are included:

Pick from Terminal
Import Customs
Import Handling
Import Warehouse
Delivery to Import Branch
Delivery

Export-Shipments

Customer and Invoice receiver
The focus is on the main carriage for export shipments, which was brought by the customer.

In Tariff maintenance and in Activity types there is an option to maintain the customer and partner, to depend on the default for shipper or consignee. Scope is taken those entries into account in the following order:

1.) If an entry exists with a matching customer and partner value

2.) If an entry exists with a matching customer and no partner entry

3.) A general match without customer and partner entry

Example:

Airfreight Export - House shipment with Incoterm CC (= EXW): Scope defaults the customer field to the import agent as he is responsible to collect the money from the consignee. The system will check for the collect charges whether an activity type and tariffs are matching for customer (= Import agent) AND partner (= Consignee). If not existing, the system will check, if an activity type is maintained for the customer (= Import agent) AND no partner (= must be blank). If not, then the general activity type (no entry in customer AND partner) is taken into account.

An activity type maintained for the "consignee" is not taken into account, unless the consignee is maintained as a customer in the shipment entry as well as in the activty type maintenance and Tariffs.

Default 'Customer'

Export shipment type	Incoterm	Default Customer
House	PP	Shipper
House	CC	Import-Agent Exception: if the flag "Uses as orderer in collect shipments" in role "Forwarding customer" of the consignee partner is marked → Customer will default to the Consignee partner then
House	CP	Import-Agent Exception: for incoterm "DAF (CP)" the customer is defaulted to the shipper partner
Direct	PP	Shipper
Direct	CC	Import-Agent (if field "Import Agent" is maintained in the shipment and its value does not equal the consignee partner) Consignee (if field "Import Agent" is not maintained or if the flag "Uses as orderer in collect shipments" in role "Forwarding customer" of the consignee partner is marked)
Master	--	There is no field "Customer"

Default 'Invoice recipient'

Incoterm Freight	Incoterm due Agent Charges	Invoice recipient for Pre-Carriage charges	Invoice recipient for Main carriage	Invoice recipient for On-carriage (only for Incoterms DAP/DDU/DDP)
Prepaid	Prepaid	Customer Exception: if the customer equals Import agent, then the shipper partner is defaulted	Customer	For incoterm DDU = customer Exception: the customer equals import agent, then the shipper partner is defaulted
Prepaid	Collect	-- Only theoretically as no incoterm like this exists	--	--
Collect	Prepaid	Shipper	Import Agent	--
Collect	Collect	Import Agent	Import Agent	--

Import-Shipments

The focus is on the on-carriage for import shipments as the main carriage is already done by export.

Default 'Customer'

The consignee partner defaults to field Customer, except for the following cases:

Incoterm	Movement	Default customer
CIF CPT CIP DES DEQ DDU DDP DAP DAT	x to Door	Export Agent
CIF CPT CIP DES DEQ DDU DDP DAP DAT	x to Port	Consignee
EXW FCA FAS FOB CFR DAF	does not matter	Consignee

Default 'Invoice recipient'

Incoterm Freight	Incoterm due Agent Charges	Invoice recipient - Pre-carriage (only for movement "From door to x")	Invoice recipient - Main carriage	Invoice recipient - On-carriage
Prepaid	Prepaid	--	--	Customer Exception: Export agent for incoterms DDU, DAP or DDP with movement "X to door" (as the seller is taken care of the costs according to those incoterms)
Prepaid	Collect	--	--	Customer
Collect	Prepaid	--	Customer	Customer
Collect	Collect	Customer	Customer	Customer