Two halves to every import
An import from China has a goods half and a money half. The goods half involves sourcing, quality, consolidation and shipping. The money half is getting RMB to your supplier in a form they can use. Problems in the goods half get the attention, but the money half is where orders quietly stall for days.
Understanding the payment stages in advance means you can plan around them rather than discovering them one at a time.
The payment stages you will meet
Most supplier relationships follow a recognisable pattern. A deposit starts production or reserves stock. A balance settles the order before goods are released or shipped. Freight and handling are often billed separately and may be quoted in RMB or in another currency. If you use a sourcing agent, you fund the agent rather than the individual sellers.
Run each stage as its own transaction. Each then carries its own reference, which is what makes it possible to answer a question about a specific payment months later without reconstructing anything.
Costing an order with the exchange rate in the picture
Supplier quotations arrive in RMB, so the Cedis cost depends on the rate. Convert the RMB total using the RMB to Cedis converter, which applies the current ELITE RMB rate and shows which tier was used. Do not cost an order from a mid-market reference rate you found elsewhere — it is not a rate you can transact at, and building a margin on it just moves the problem later.
Allow headroom for rate movement between the day you agree a supplier price and the day you pay. Rates are set by ELITE RMB administration and can change, so a quotation today is not a commitment about the rate next month.
Keeping the record that matters
For each payment, keep the transaction reference, the amount, the date, the invoice or proforma number and the stage it covered. Stored together, that is everything needed to answer a supplier question, an internal reconciliation, or a query raised with ELITE RMB.
The alternative — a payment history spread across WhatsApp messages and a notebook — is what makes import accounting painful.