What do we mean by 'centralisation'?
Centralisation simply means bringing all of your customs clearances under one provider.
The reason this is important is because you gain a range of advantages when you work with a single customs partner. Not only can you benefit from commercial incentives, but you can also simplify your operations from:
- One source of reporting.
- One set of invoices, often on a bulk invoice.
- One point of contact.
- One way of your export declaration being done.
Some of these benefits you during the process, such as not needing to juggle which agent does what, but there are also post-clearance benefits. When you need to get information to customs authorities during an audit, or do your own compliance checks, that information is there and ready. Furthermore, you won’t have anomalies in the way the data is declared – which can often be a variable from agent to agent.
When you have this solid foundation of centralised resources that can generate clean data, you can then look at the next level: automation.
How does automation come into export clearance?
When it comes to simplifying processes and reducing risk, automation is king. All it takes is a single digit to be entered incorrectly from one input of data to the next, and there are then irregularities in the data. Whether it’s a customs declaration that’s then wrong or an internal report for your figures, working with dirty data is not something you want.
Of course, any variables in how different customs partners input data will also have an impact on the end figures as well. This is why we say automation can only really be achieved with centralised resources. Without this, we can only rely on one half of the process, the beginning.
The starting process of automation is ensuring that data is moved throughout the systems in an efficient way. We can do this with an EDI connection with your order fulfilment system, using XML datasets, or even by scanning your commercial paperwork with Intelligent Document Processing.
When everything is running smoothly with automation, you can be safe in the knowledge that there is minimal risk of noncompliance, that your declarations are being completed on time, and that the end data is clean in case you need to pull a report or a risk analysis from it.
Of course, that export dataset can also be sent to the import clearance agent as well. In our case, when there is a Customs Support office in both countries, we have an option to process this automatically as part of our end-to-end customs clearance service.
Beyond simplification and compliance, what other benefits are there to automation?
As with any part of your supply chain, the consideration of additional resource is always a factor when trying to scale. When we look at the export customs function, this means:
- The time that your team need to spend coordinating customs clearance process.
- The cost from repeated manual tasks such as emails.
- The risk of errors and the repercussions of noncompliance on your existing business.
- The need to manage relationships with customs partners.
When you have a solid automation process in place with centralised resources, these “obstacles” are minimal. You can scale from 100 declarations to 1000, or even higher, and the framework will take care of most of the heavy lifting for you.
Furthermore, having your customs process running efficiently can help you obtain other benefits, such as an AEOC licence, more easily.
Even if you are not currently looking at scaling or obtaining AEO status, having these things in place when an opportunity arises can be the difference between seizing that opportunity or having it slip by.
What are the main objections that you see when it comes to automating processes?
Normally, it’s resistance from the person in charge of the practical customs processes because they are finding themselves on unfamiliar ground. They might be unsure if their IT would support it, or they are concerned with the amount of work to make the changes.
More often than not, a chat with IT finds that they already have an idea how to proceed and they are ready to collaborate with our digital customs connection specialists, and we can create an implementation plan that has minimal impact on their current operations.
At first glance, it may seem like a big project, but with our approach, all you need to do is provide us with your data using your preferred method, and we'll handle the rest.
What would you to someone who is interested in using automation in their export customs?
I’d say that we should have a chat. Digitalisation in customs is becoming more important every year, and the best time to incorporate digital into your fulfilment and export process is now. Customs Support provides digital customs services throughout Europe, so we can help you no matter where in the EU or UK you need us. Contact us for more information.
