PDF to Excel for Import / Export Businesses

Built for importers, exporters, freight forwarders, and customs brokers. Convert bills of lading, commercial invoices, packing lists, and customs forms — across any carrier, any country, any currency — into clean Excel files for shipment tracking and customs filings.

Try it on a shipment — free

International trade runs on PDFs nobody designed for spreadsheets

A single shipment generates a stack of documents — a bill of lading from the carrier, a commercial invoice from the supplier in their currency, a packing list with line-by-line product detail, a certificate of origin, sometimes an inspection report. Each document arrives in a different layout from a different source: Maersk's BOL doesn't look like Hapag-Lloyd's; a Chinese supplier's invoice doesn't match a Vietnamese supplier's. Customs filings need clean line-item data; freight payables need the BOL number and container ID for matching against the carrier invoice.

Generic PDF-to-Excel tools assume consistent grids and break the moment a foreign-language document or a wrapped product description hits. ERP integrations exist for the largest carriers but not for the long tail of regional carriers, NVOCCs, and consolidators. So freight teams type BOL numbers and container IDs into shipment trackers by hand.

Every trade document, every carrier, every currency

PDFExcel reads bills of lading from any carrier (Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Evergreen, COSCO, plus regional NVOCCs), commercial invoices from any supplier (handles English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Portuguese), packing lists with multi-line product descriptions, and customs forms (CBP 7501, CN22/23, ATA carnet). One row per shipment for high-level fields, or one row per line item if you need product-level detail for HTS classification or duty calculation.

Multi-currency commercial invoices preserve both the original amount (with currency code) and the USD-converted equivalent if a conversion is shown on the invoice. Container IDs, BOL numbers, and ETA dates come out as clean fields ready to join against your shipment tracker, freight payable system, or customs filing software.

Fields you can pull

  • BOL Number
  • Container ID
  • Carrier
  • Origin Port / Destination Port
  • Vessel / Voyage
  • ETD / ETA
  • Shipper / Consignee
  • Commercial Invoice Total
  • Currency
  • HTS Code
  • Line Items (description, qty, weight)

The model recognizes container ID formats (4 letters + 7 digits + check digit), HTS / Schedule B codes, and multi-line product descriptions that wrap across rows. Trained on real trade documents — not generic OCR.

Why import/export teams pick PDFExcel

Most trade-document tools either need an EDI connection per carrier or charge per-document at trade volume. PDFExcel reads any carrier's PDF on the first upload — and you can process a week of shipments in minutes.

  • Knows BOLs, commercial invoices, and packing lists. Trained on documents from Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Evergreen, COSCO, plus regional NVOCCs. Multi-language commercial invoices supported.
  • Free to start, no credit card. 10 documents free every month. Plans from $69/month for 50 documents — most small import/export firms fit Starter or Pro.
  • No EDI to set up. Sign in with Google or Microsoft and process your first shipment doc in under a minute. No carrier integration, no IT lift, no per-carrier configuration.
  • Files deleted after processing. Trade documents often contain commercially sensitive pricing — files are processed in memory and deleted immediately. Never stored, never shared, never used to train AI.

How it works

  1. Upload your shipment docs. BOLs, commercial invoices, packing lists, customs forms — drop in one shipment's stack or a week of them as a ZIP.
  2. Pick the fields you need. BOL #, Container, Origin/Destination, ETA for shipment tracking. Line Items + HTS for customs / duty calculation. Currency + Total for freight payable matching.
  3. Drop into your tracker / customs system. Excel/CSV per shipment. Import into your TMS, freight-payable AP system, or customs broker software.

What a week of shipments looks like in Excel

One row per shipment with carrier, BOL, container, ports, and commercial invoice total. Add Line Items for HTS-level detail.

# BOL # Carrier Container Origin Destination ETA Inv Total
1 MAEU8472193 Maersk MSKU2148293 Shanghai (CNSHA) Long Beach (USLGB) 03/22/2025 $184,200.00
2 MEDUL4421 MSC MEDU3982110 Rotterdam (NLRTM) New York (USNYC) 03/24/2025 €92,840.00
3 HLCUSHA2503 Hapag-Lloyd HLXU8821447 Ho Chi Minh (VNSGN) Oakland (USOAK) 04/02/2025 $67,500.00
4 CMDUNYC417 CMA CGM CMAU4471829 Hamburg (DEHAM) Charleston (USCHS) 04/05/2025 €48,200.00
5 ONEYCN4421 ONE ONEU3392884 Yokohama (JPYOK) Los Angeles (USLAX) 04/08/2025 ¥12,840,000

Built for the people moving goods across borders

Import/export companies tracking inbound shipments, freight forwarders managing client moves, customs brokers preparing entries, e-commerce brands with international suppliers.

An import operations manager

Manages 50-80 inbound shipments a month from suppliers in 8 countries. Drops the week's BOLs and commercial invoices into PDFExcel, exports to the shipment-tracking spreadsheet. Container-level visibility in 15 minutes instead of 2 hours of typing.

A customs broker

Prepares CBP 7501 entries for 200+ clients. Commercial invoices arrive in 6 languages and 12 currencies. Convert each shipment's documents to one row per line item with HTS, country of origin, and unit value — ready for entry summary preparation.

An e-commerce brand with overseas manufacturing

Imports 30+ container loads per quarter from 4 contract manufacturers. Convert packing lists to Excel for inbound-receipt matching against the WMS. Item-level reconciliation becomes a 10-minute job per container.

Pricing

  • Free — 10 documents / month, no credit card
  • Starter $69/mo — 50 documents, $1.50 per extra
  • Pro $199/mo — 200 documents, $0.99 per extra
  • Business $699/mo — 1,000 documents, $0.59 per extra

Frequently asked questions

Does it work on bills of lading from non-US carriers?

Yes. The model handles BOLs from every major liner carrier (Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Evergreen, COSCO, ZIM, HMM, Yang Ming) and from regional NVOCCs and consolidators. House BOLs and master BOLs both work.

What about commercial invoices in foreign languages?

Yes. Commercial invoices in English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, and Vietnamese all extract correctly. The model identifies the invoice total, line-item amounts, and product descriptions regardless of the language of the disclaimer text.

Can it extract HTS codes for customs entries?

Yes. Add 'HTS Code' as a field and the model finds it on each line item. Useful for entry summary preparation and post-entry duty drawback claims. We don't validate HTS codes against the harmonized tariff schedule — always verify against current CBP guidance before filing.

How do you handle multi-currency invoices?

The model preserves the original currency code and amount, plus the USD-converted equivalent if the invoice shows a conversion. If you need a specific exchange-rate-date conversion that the invoice doesn't show, you'll need to apply it externally — we don't fetch live FX rates.

Is trade document data handled securely?

Yes. Files are encrypted in transit, processed in memory, and permanently deleted as soon as extraction completes. Trade documents often contain commercially sensitive supplier pricing — never stored, never shared, never used to train AI.

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