How to use TrueCost Pro

Written by James F. Kollie, Jr. · Published 10 September 2026 · Reviewed 10 September 2026 · 8 min read

What a TrueCost Pro project represents

A project is one import shipment: one container, one consignment, one airfreight lot, or one supplier quotation you are evaluating before you commit. Everything inside a project — destination, origin, currency, freight, insurance, container, allocation basis, VAT or GST rules, shipment-level levies and shared commercial costs — belongs to that project alone.

Shipment setup is not a global setting. Changing it does not change any other project. When you want to cost a different shipment, a different container or a second supplier's quote, you create a new project, or duplicate the current one and edit the copy. One paid account can hold as many projects as you need, and each project can hold as many products as travelled in that shipment.

One term used throughout: CIF is the value of the goods plus international freight plus insurance — the delivered-to-port value before any government charge. Duty and, in most countries, import VAT or GST are calculated from it.

Before you begin

Have these to hand. You can start without all of them and fill gaps later.

• Supplier quotation or invoice — the total price for each product line, not the per-unit price.
• Quantities — the units you expect to actually sell, after samples and breakage.
• Freight and insurance quote for the whole shipment.
• HS codes for each product. See HS codes and duty rates.
• Destination duty, excise, levy and VAT or GST rates, confirmed against the destination tariff. TrueCost publishes no rates of its own.
• Other costs — clearing agent, terminal handling, inspection, documentation, trucking.
• Expected selling prices, so the profit and margin figures mean something.

Step 1 · Shipment setup

Name the project and give it a reference you will recognise later, such as the supplier name and month or your own shipment number. Then set the destination, origin, currency, international freight, insurance and container. Choose how shared costs are allocated across products — by purchase value, quantity, weight or volume. Value is the usual default; the reasoning is in allocating freight across multiple products.

Also set the duty base and the VAT or GST base here, and add any shipment-level levies and commercial costs. A destination preset gives you a starting point; every rate stays editable, and you are responsible for confirming it. See how the import VAT and GST base is built.

Step 2 · Products

Add each product that travels in this shipment. The field that trips people up is supplier cost: enter the total cost of that product line, not the unit price. Four hundred cartons at $30 is 12,000, not 30.

For each product also enter sellable units, HS code and tariff description, the customs duty rate, any product-specific excise or levy, the expected local selling price, per-unit selling costs and your target margin.

Step 3 · Compare

Compare is a read-only view. It shows how the shipment's shared costs were allocated to each product, the landed cost and per-unit cost of each line, and the profit and margin at your selling prices. It is where a shipment that looked fine in total turns out to be carried by one product and dragged down by another.

Step 4 · Reconcile

Until the goods arrive, everything is an estimate. Once you have the supplier's final invoice, the customs assessment and the clearing agent's bill, enter those actual figures here. TrueCost shows the variance per product so you know where your estimating was optimistic — and your next quotation is better for it.

Step 5 · Scenarios

Scenarios answer "what if freight rises 15%?" or "what does this look like at a different exchange rate?". The output is a what-if view calculated on top of your saved figures. Selecting or changing a scenario does not rewrite the base shipment. If you want to keep a variant permanently, duplicate the project and edit the copy.

Step 6 · Report

The report is a neutral landed cost statement for the products in the currently open project. Review it on screen, download the CSV for your own workbook, or print and save it as a PDF. The figures in the CSV, the PDF and the screen always agree.

A short worked workflow

1. Create a new project. It opens blank, with no products and no costs.
2. Name it "Guangzhou paint — Sept" and give it your own reference.
3. In shipment setup, choose the destination, set freight and insurance from the forwarder's quote, pick the container and confirm the duty and tax bases.
4. Add each product with its total supplier cost, units, HS code and duty rate.
5. Add clearing, handling and trucking as commercial costs on the shipment.
6. Open Compare and check per-unit landed cost and margin against your price list.
7. Run a freight scenario if the quote is not yet firm.
8. Open Report, check the products listed, then download the CSV and save the PDF.
9. After arrival, return to Reconcile and enter the actuals.

Common mistakes

• Mixing two shipments in one project. Shared freight and clearing are allocated across everything in the project, so a second shipment's products silently absorb the first shipment's costs. Create a separate project.
• Leaving example or leftover products in place. Anything sitting in the products list is included in the totals and the report.
• Entering unit cost as total supplier cost. The single most common cause of a wildly low landed cost.
• Putting broker or trucking fees into the VAT/GST base where the destination does not tax them. Only include what the destination's rules actually include.
• Confusing scenario output with saved figures. A scenario is a view, not a save.

Questions importers ask

Is a project one shipment or all my shipments?

One shipment, container, consignment or supplier quotation. Your account holds as many projects as you like.

Can one project contain several products?

Yes — that is the point. A mixed container is one project with several products, and the shared costs are allocated across them.

How do I cost a second shipment?

Create a new project, or duplicate the current one if the destination and cost rules are similar, then edit the copy.

What is the difference between estimates and actuals?

Estimates are what you expect before arrival. Actuals are the invoiced and assessed figures afterwards, entered in Reconcile so you can see the variance.

Where do HS codes come from?

You supply them, verified against the destination tariff. The lookup helps you search, but the classification and the rate remain your responsibility and your clearing agent's.

Do scenarios change my saved figures?

No. They are calculated on top of the saved base shipment and never overwrite it.

How we calculate and verify this

Every figure on this page is produced by the same calculation engine the free calculator and TrueCost Pro use, applied in the sequence set out in our calculation methodology. We publish no duty, excise, levy or tax rates of our own: rates, bases and exemptions are entered by you, and country presets are explanatory starting points that record where they came from and when they were last reviewed.

Results are estimates. This guide explains general method, not the law of any country. Confirm your tariff line, rate, tax base and exemptions with the destination customs authority or a licensed clearing agent before you commit to a purchase or a price. Nothing here is customs, tax or legal advice. If you find something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.