Wholesale Sourcing Agent: Authority, Fees and Order Records

An unclear mandate can waste cash on an unapproved order. Before appointing a wholesale sourcing agent, record approval rights, deliverables, the actual seller and payment evidence.

A wholesale sourcing agent should receive a written scope that separates work it may perform from decisions it may approve. This guide starts after you have a product specification and are considering delegating procurement. Use the matrix below to agree who can place a purchase order, approve a substitution, authorize payment, and release a shipment. Then use the blank record to connect each decision to a seller, document and payment. These are proposed controls to negotiate; an agency title, a website promise or a fee invoice does not establish that they already exist.

For the wider sourcing context, return to the wholesale suppliers guide. Checking a company’s identity belongs in the separate supplier verification process.

Agree the buyer’s authority before delegating the work

Keep approval rights explicit, even when the agent handles daily supplier communication. Write the authorized person’s name and the approved communication channel into the engagement; a job title alone leaves the next staff change unresolved.

The following is a proposed buyer-controlled starting point, not a description of every agent’s service or a universal legal requirement. Change it deliberately and keep the agreed version with the order.

Decision	Agent’s proposed work	Buyer’s reserved decision	Record to keep
Supplier shortlist	Collect comparable offers and identify the quoted seller	Select the seller and approve the product specification	Dated quotations, seller identity and selection approval
Purchase order (PO)	Prepare or transmit the approved order	Approve quantity, specification revision, price basis and terms before commitment	Approved PO and seller’s acceptance
Product or factory change	Explain the change and its effects	Approve or reject any substitution before work proceeds	Change request linked to the original PO
Inspection	Arrange the agreed check and deliver its report	Decide whether to accept, request correction or hold shipment	Scope, report, unresolved findings and release decision
Payments	Assemble the invoice and supporting documents	Approve the amount, recipient and release condition	Approval, verified instructions and payment receipt
Shipment	Coordinate booking and packing information	Approve release against the agreed conditions	Packing list, release approval and transport reference
Dispute or exit	Gather evidence and prepare a handover	Approve a settlement and appoint the next contact	Claim log, agreed settlement or handover inventory

State what happens if you do not reply. A proposed rule is that silence does not authorize a substitute product, a higher commitment or a new payee. If you give limited spending authority, write its scope, currency, limit and expiry into the mandate; leave those fields blank until agreed. Do not assume a chat message about one sample approves the production order.

For a hypothetical mug order, approval of an ivory sample would not authorize the agent to switch the factory or glaze. Under the proposed matrix, the agent submits the change and the buyer records a decision against the PO revision. This example demonstrates the record flow; it is not a case study or a product-compliance assessment.

Separate the service fee from the product purchase

Ask for a fee calculation you can reproduce from the agreed terms. A low headline commission is not a complete comparison if its base, exclusions and additional charges remain unspecified.

Term to settle	What to write into the engagement
Charging method	Fixed project fee, time-based fee, percentage, resale margin, or another expressly stated basis
Fee base	The exact included and excluded amounts; do not assume freight, tooling, taxes or rejected goods are treated the same way
Earning event	The deliverable or event that earns the fee, separately from when cash is due
Additional services	Which inspections, samples, storage, consolidation, travel or rework need separate approval
Other compensation	Whether the agent receives supplier payments, rebates, referral fees or discounts, and how they are disclosed and allocated
Cancellation and credits	What happens to earned fees, unspent advances, supplier refunds and cancelled orders
Currency and conversion	Invoice currency, conversion basis and allocation of transfer charges

Request the seller’s goods invoice and a separate agent service-fee record when the arrangement is genuinely a purchasing service. If the intermediary instead sells you the goods on its own invoice, record that transaction as presented and clarify its seller obligations. Do not manufacture a factory invoice or relabel a resale margin to make the file look like agency procurement.

Use the quotation request guide to fix the product and trade-term inputs before comparing the agent’s proposed work. For the supplier decision itself, use the supplier selection scorecard; this page evaluates the mandate and records rather than scoring the factories again.

Make every transfer traceable to an order and recipient

Keep product funds, service fees and reimbursed expenses identifiable in your record, even if a single transfer covers several items. Before funding an agent-held advance, agree how it may be used, what proof of onward payment you receive, and how the unused balance is reconciled and returned.

The blank CSV below is a working record for one engagement. It contains field names and prompts, with empty answer cells. Copy it for each order; keep supporting files separately and put their references into the document column. It does not authorize a payment or replace an agreement.

Download the blank sourcing-agent order record (CSV). The authority matrix above supplies the suggested responsibilities; the CSV is where you record the names, terms, approvals and evidence actually agreed.

Record group	Fields to complete	Evidence to attach
Parties	Buyer, agent, actual seller, manufacturer if different, and each party’s role	Engagement, seller confirmation and contact details
Scope and authority	PO identifier, specification revision, named approver and permitted agent actions	Agreed mandate and PO approval
Fees and interests	Charging method, base, extra services and disclosed supplier compensation	Fee terms, calculation and service invoice
Money	Purpose, invoice reference, currency, recipient, amount approved, amount paid and balance	Verified payment instructions, approval, bank receipt and onward-payment proof if applicable
Inspection and release	Inspection scope, who performs it, report reference, open issues and release approver	Inspection report, corrective-action record and buyer decision
Exit and claims	Open orders, held funds, document owner, agreed handover date and unresolved claims	Reconciliation, handover inventory and acknowledgement

For each transfer, reconcile the amount funded with documented payments, approved deductions and the remaining balance. A receipt showing that you paid the agent does not by itself show that the seller was paid. Ask for that second record where the agent pays the seller on your behalf.

As a practical control, independently confirm a changed bank instruction through a contact channel already established with the relevant party. Record who verified it and when. An unexplained change of recipient is a reason to hold approval while the parties reconcile the instructions.

Why actual conduct matters more than the agency label

The historical CBP cases illustrate why approval and payment records matter, but they do not decide today’s customs treatment of your arrangement.

CBP’s June 2004 Customs Valuation Encyclopedia, printed page 63, summarizes ruling 545465, April 6, 1994. Relevant facts included buyer-directed orders, buyer selection of the manufacturer and access to the agent’s records. Its conclusion was conditional on the parties acting as described. On that same printed page, ruling 545362, May 31, 1994 describes insufficient evidence of buyer control and an inability to purchase directly from vendors. The claimed buying-agency relationship was not established. See the archived CBP text, printed pages 59–64.

The editorial lesson is to preserve instructions and the documents showing how the order actually ran. A separate fee invoice is useful for explaining a transaction; it does not alone determine customs value. These are old, fact-specific case summaries, not a current tariff ruling or a promise that any fee is excluded from customs value. Have the actual arrangement assessed before making a valuation claim.

Current CBP importer guidance, read October 15, 2026, also states that using a customs broker leaves the importer of record responsible for entry accuracy and applicable duties, taxes and fees. It calls for attention to commodity-specific requirements. Record who the importer of record is; an agent’s offer to coordinate shipping does not settle that question.

Specify inspection deliverables and the exit handover

Agree what will be delivered and who can act on it before production begins. A promise to “check quality” leaves the scope, evidence and shipment decision open.

For an inspection assignment, record the product and specification revision, the stage of the check, who chooses the inspector, the agreed scope and acceptance criteria, the report recipient, and who approves correction or release. Set the criteria for the actual product with the appropriate specialist; this guide supplies no default sampling plan or acceptance threshold. Photos alone should not be recorded as completion of checks they do not show.

Before appointing the agent, also agree the following exit deliverables and their handover timing:

• A list of open POs, current production status, pending approvals and named supplier contacts, subject to the agreed access rights.
• A reconciliation of funds held, payments made, unpaid invoices, disputed charges and the treatment of any refund.
• Copies of the agreed order, inspection, packing and transport records, plus a list of documents still outstanding.
• An inventory of samples, tooling, artwork and other materials, with the agreed ownership, custody and transfer arrangements.
• A claims log stating the issue, evidence, responsible contact and any deadline copied from the actual contract or applicable policy.

Distinguish a commitment to help pursue a claim from a commitment to pay compensation. Record the party that owes the remedy and the procedure for seeking it. Termination rights, document access and enforceability depend on the agreement and jurisdiction; resolve them before relying on a future handover.

Decide whether this mandate is ready

Proceed only when you can explain what the agent will deliver, what you retain the right to approve, and how each payment and unresolved order can be reconstructed. Judge the engagement against the coordination work you need and can otherwise perform, using its complete agreed cost rather than an assumed market fee.

Hold the appointment if the proposed agreement leaves substitutions, spending authority, the actual seller, supplier compensation or fund reconciliation unresolved. A recommendation on a forum can supply a candidate; it cannot fill these fields for your transaction. Complete the blank record with the proposed agent and retain the agreed version before authorizing procurement.

Method and sources

Updated October 15, 2026. This guide combines CBP’s importer guidance, opened on that date, with historical buying-commission case summaries in the June 2004 encyclopedia. The matrix, CSV prompts and proposed approval controls are editorial recommendations derived for an ecommerce buyer’s procurement discussion. They are not audited results, a model contract, an agent ranking or a determination of current customs treatment. Unknown parties, fees, limits and deadlines remain blank until supported by the actual engagement and order records.