Cross-border freight invoices, read the way they were printed.

The currency comes from what the page prints

Each invoice keeps the currency it was issued in, and amounts in different currencies are never added together. IPP settles the currency from the evidence on the document, strongest first: a printed symbol or code (N$, NAD, R, ZAR, ZK, ZMW, US$), then the bank’s SWIFT code, then the supplier’s country, phone number, email domain and address.

A printed currency beats the supplier’s country. A Namibian haulier that prints “Currency: USD” stays in US dollars; a bare $ on a Namibian supplier’s invoice, with nothing more specific printed, follows the supplier and reads as Namibian dollars. Towns in the supplier’s own address count, from Walvis Bay, Windhoek and Lüderitz to Johannesburg, Durban, Lusaka and Ndola, including Afrikaans and German spellings such as Walvisbaai. The customer’s address never settles the currency quietly: when it is the only evidence, the invoice is marked for you to check.

When nothing on the document settles it, the currency is left unknown and the invoice is marked low confidence, rather than defaulting to US dollars.

Numbers, dates and VAT in southern African layouts

The formats that trip up generic tools are the everyday ones here:

• Thousands grouped with a space, such as “N$7 319.67” or “R 1 234,56”, are read as one amount, not two.
• Dates read day first on a Namibian, South African or Zambian document, even when it bills in US dollars. A date elsewhere on the page that can only be read one way, such as 25/03/2025, settles the order for the whole document.
• VAT-inclusive layouts, including the Sage and Pastel style where “Sub Total” comes after the VAT, keep the net figure the page prints. When the page prints no VAT-exclusive figure at all, IPP works it out as total less VAT and leaves a note saying so.
• When a page prints one VAT rate and no other percentage, the VAT amount is checked against that rate and a difference is flagged.
• Credit notes keep their own number (“Credit Note No”, “NdC No.” on a Nota de Crédito), not the number of the invoice they reverse.

Tag each cost to the load

Give an invoice, or a single line on it, your own trip number. It is free text you generate, not something read off the document, so it can be added or changed after the invoice is approved and pushed, which is when freight numbers usually arrive. One clearing invoice covering two consignments can be split between them by tagging its lines.

Record a load with its revenue, truck, customer reference and loaded, empty and total kilometres. With costs tagged to it, the load shows its income and costs, and its margin where the currencies can be compared. When a foreign-currency bill settles at a different rate from the one it was billed at, both rates can be recorded beside the invoice without changing it.

Getting paperwork in, and bills out

The rest of the workflow is the same whichever country the paper came from:

• Upload up to 50 documents at once, or forward them to a client’s own inbox address. Email intake is on every plan, the free one included.
• Every invoice is checked: subtotal − discount + shipping + fees + tax must equal the total, and a gap is flagged with its size.
• Possible duplicates are flagged against the past year of invoices in the workspace, with the reason they matched.
• Approved bills go to QuickBooks Online, Xero or Zoho Books on paid plans and during the trial, or out as CSV and Excel on every plan. Nothing is pushed without an approval.
• For a VAT-registered workspace, QuickBooks Online bills can carry VAT on your own QuickBooks tax codes. Xero and Zoho Books pushes do not set tax codes yet.