Carriage, Import Duty & Transport Insurance: Codes 5100, 5101 & 5102

Getting stock from a supplier to the business rarely costs nothing extra — delivery charges, customs duty on imports, and insurance while goods are in transit all add to the real cost of a purchase, even though they're not the purchase price itself.

The codes, and what each one holds

Code 5100 — Carriage records delivery or freight charges paid to get purchased goods to the business.

Code 5101 — Import Duty records customs duty paid on goods brought in from outside the UK.

Code 5102 — Transport Insurance records insurance taken out to cover goods while they're in transit. All three are Purchases & Direct Costs codes and normally carry a debit balance.

A worked example

Say a business imports £5,000 of goods, paying £200 freight, £350 in customs duty, and £40 for transit insurance on top of the goods themselves.

Materials Imported (code 5001): £5,000 debited for the goods.

Carriage (code 5100): £200 debited.

Import Duty (code 5101): £350 debited.

Transport Insurance (code 5102): £40 debited.

The true landed cost of the shipment is £5,590, even though the supplier's invoice only shows £5,000.

Why this matters day to day

Recording these costs separately, rather than folding them into the headline materials cost, means a business can see exactly how much of its purchasing budget is going on logistics rather than the goods themselves — useful when comparing suppliers or renegotiating freight contracts. Import duty in particular is worth tracking closely since it isn't reclaimable in the way VAT usually is, so it directly increases the true cost of imported stock.