Illustrative sample
See FlowDocs before you share a real shipment.
This sample uses invented values and makes no provider call. Explore the exact four-field check, including a mismatch and an honest cannot-compare result.
Illustrative sample · no customer data
Shipment pack SHP-10482
Commercial invoice
Ready
Packing list
Ready
Bill of lading or air waybill
Missing
The bill of lading or air waybill is checked for presence only.
Comparison
Commercial invoice vs packing list
Select a field to see why
Why packages is a mismatch
Both values are safely comparable whole-package totals, but they do not agree.
Source evidence: Commercial Invoice, page 1 · Packing List, page 1
What each result in the sample means.
Match
Order reference (PO-10482 on both documents) and consignee (Northstar Retail on both)
What it means. The two documents agree. Both fields are compared as text, ignoring case and extra spaces, without fuzzy matching. Order reference: Same reference on both documents. A person reviewed this value before it was compared. Consignee: The names match. Address text isn’t part of the comparison.
What to do next. Nothing to send back. Both values sit side by side with the page each was read from.
Mismatch
Packages: 128 on the commercial invoice, 126 on the packing list
What it means. Both values are safely comparable whole-package totals, but they do not agree. The difference is on the bath mats line: 64 cartons invoiced, 62 packed. Customs expects the invoice and the packing list to describe the same shipment; when they don’t, the shipment can be pulled for inspection.
What to do next. Send the shipper exactly what to fix before the cargo moves: the bath mats line, 64 cartons invoiced and 62 packed. Each mismatch is shown with the value from both documents, which you can pass to the shipper; FlowDocs does not write or send that message for you.
Cannot compare
Gross weight: 5,640.00 kg on the commercial invoice, 5.64 tons on the packing list
What it means. A ton can be a short ton (5,117 kg), a metric tonne (5,640 kg) or a long ton (5,731 kg). FlowDocs won’t pick one, so this comes back Cannot compare. If a value can’t be read with certainty, it comes back Cannot compare with the reason. FlowDocs never blames your paperwork for its own reading problem.
What to do next. Ask the shipper to state the weight in kilograms on both documents. Gross weight is compared only when both documents state it in kilograms; any other unit returns Cannot compare instead of a converted guess.
Missing
Bill of lading or air waybill: not in pack SHP-10482
What it means. The pack has a commercial invoice and a packing list, but no bill of lading or air waybill. A complete pack holds all three: commercial invoice, packing list, and bill of lading or air waybill. The transport document is checked for presence only.
What to do next. Add the transport document to complete the pack.
What this sample represents.
The current product checks pack completeness and compares order reference, consignee, packages and gross weight between the Commercial Invoice and Packing List. The Transport Document remains presence-only.
If the workflow fits, send 3 of your own recent shipment packs. We review every result by hand and email you the report within 24 hours, free. No operational-system credentials are required.
Check 3 packs freeYou can delete or paste over the names, values and routes first — FlowDocs still reads whatever is left. Use a tool that removes the text rather than a black box drawn on top: a drawn box hides it from you, not from a parser.