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Source: American
Shipper+ Shippers' NewsWire
Date
Posted: 6/29/2007 9:45:21 AM
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TSN convinces CBP to stagger ACE start-up
for entries |
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Big Bang is dead.
U.S.
Customs and Border Protection has pulled back its plan to turn
on its modernized trade processing system in one fell swoop
for all importers, and will instead gradually transition them
over a two-month period, according to members of the
international trade industry who regularly advise the agency
on business, technical and policy considerations regarding the
new system.
The next major release for the
Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), the new information
technology system for administering commercial operations,
will be the Entry Summary, Accounts, Revenue module. CBP until
recently planned to activate ACE overnight and require
importers and their customs brokers to immediately switch from
the Automated Commercial System and its broker interface used
to file their customs entry summaries and other
communications. The agency, which is responsible for
collecting the nation's customs duties and other fees, has now
agreed to adjust its strategy toward a more gradual rollout at
the request of industry, several members of the Trade Support
Network (TSN) said in a conference call with reporters to
outline developments from their plenary session in Baltimore
last week.
CBP changed its mind after
receiving a report from the TSN outlining the risks of a
massive changeover and recommending a slower deployment to
make sure agency and corporate systems could handle the new
data flows without disruption, said Celeste Catano, lead
designer at Kewill, a provider of trade compliance and supply
chain decision-making software.
Instead of
flipping the switch to a new process for all customs entry
filers on a set day -- referred to by those close to the
program as the Big Bang -- or phasing in the system port by
port, CBP will deploy the new system filer by filer, Catano
said Thursday. The TSN is developing a second set of
recommendations on how to bring importers into ACE in a
stepped approach.
TSN members said CBP is
considering a six to eight week window during which importers
would have to join ACE and begin filing
entries.
Bringing on brokers and importers who
self file in a steady stream would allow for "better control
of the traffic and make it more manageable for the trade and
CBP," said Melissa Irmen, director of product management at
global trade software provider
IntegrationPoint.
Meanwhile, CBP will
concentrate on making sure software vendors with customs
applications have their connections to ACE tested and
certified. Having technology providers certified makes it
easier for CBP to add multiple importers who use the same
software system, Catano said.
Barry O'Brien,
director of global trade and customs at toymaker Hasbro and a
member of the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee that
has CBP's ear on policy matters, said it's also important to
make sure the software can reconcile financial transactions
with the taxes and fees owed to Customs because ACE requires
new processes for reporting payments.
The
agency has also decided to make the functions available piece
by piece rather than rolling them out in one big chunk, part
of its effort to reduce the risk of overloading the system and
reducing industry mistakes.
"We felt we needed
some stability with the software before we implemented,"
Catano said. Software companies are running test scenarios so
that when ACE is turned on live they will have assurances that
the system will accept the information they
provide.
CBP's information technology office
is staffing up its Help Desk to assist importers with the
transition.
CBP officials said their target
implementation date of October 2008 for the second phase ACE
entry module has now slipped into 2009 or beyond, in part,
because of the new approach and industry's request for more
testing, according to TSN representatives. The complexity of
automating the handling of so much paperwork is also proving
to be very challenging. Some applications within the module
could be brought forward sooner, Catano said.
The delay "is not just a matter of bureaucrats not doing
things on time but because they are listening to us," said Tom
Gould, a trade consultant with San Diego-based Zisser
Group.
In March, CBP announced that the
release of the first portion of the entry summary module would
be pushed from May to August of this year due to technical
challenges. The A1 software release, as it is referred to,
would add several new functional capabilities to ACE, and open
the door to new account types, such as carriers, sureties and
foreign trade zone operators, eligible to do business in ACE.
Importers and their designated brokers currently are the only
parties with ACE accounts.
Many members of the
trade community are excited about ACE's potential. The system
already allows companies that have set up accounts to pay
duties on a monthly, rather than a per-entry, or
transactional, basis. Participating importers and brokers can
review their transactional data as it resides within the CBP
system through a Web portal. The truck electronic manifest
system is also operating along the northern and southern
borders and the transition to the mandatory system for filing
shipment data prior to arrival at the border is going
smoothly, said Cindy Allen, director of compliance at Argents
Express Group.
CBP is reminding truckers about
the new rule before it begins to enforce the requirement for
e-manifests as it migrates from paper-based processing of
inbound truck shipments.
Argents arranges
freight and files customs paperwork on behalf of
shippers.
A multimodal electronic manifest
filing system covering air, rail and vessels in addition to
trucks, is scheduled to be in operation by the fall of
2008.
Large corporations will also benefit by
getting a consolidated, national view of their customs
activity. ACE allows companies with multiple subsidiaries or
facilities that handle their own imports, or use different
customs brokers, to get customized reports covering the entire
organization rather than having to go to each broker and
manually combine the data for a complete view.
A company using ACE, for example, could see what all of its
subsidiaries are importing by classification, country of
origin, border crossing, special duty preference program, or
other category.
"You can put your entire
organization on ACE and draw down reports within a couple of
minutes," said Don Huber, who works for General Electric
Co.
Other functions available in the A2
software include electronic document submission, simpler
correction capability and streamlined process for filing
antidumping and countervailing duties for goods under unfair
trade sanctions.
In other developments, TSN
has also developed its own Web site, http://www.acetransition.net/, as a place
where the committee can post white papers and other documents
for viewing by the trade community and to serve as a forum, or
user group, for TSN members to answer questions from industry
members seeking clarification on issues beyond official
pronouncements from CBP, Gould said.
CBP is
developing ACE as a single government portal to replace
existing programs that monitor, control and expedite
commercial imports and exports. The agency began implementing
technical upgrades behind the scenes in 2003, and expects to
complete the phased launch of different functions by 2010, and
at a cost of more than $3.5 billion. When fully implemented it
will bring huge changes to the way importers, exporters,
customs brokers and carriers interact with CBP, as well as
other government agencies. Companies will have to invest
resources to change their processes and program their systems
to interface with ACE.
TSN meetings have
traditionally been closed to the press because they are viewed
by industry and government representatives as unofficial,
pre-policy sessions and that publicity could stifle open
dialogue. Many companies also have policies about employees
talking to the media. But the TSN is worried that CBP is not
doing enough to publicize the dramatic changes in business
practices that will be forced on the import-export industry as
Customs transitions from the current Automated Commercial
System to ACE. The press conference was conducted to help
spread the word to the rest of the trade community about what
the TSN is doing to prepare for ACE.
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