The ICPA states that compliance will be more important in 2009 because of the greater impact of governmental action upon importers and exporters during tight economic times. It will be even more important to prevent penalties or the interruptions of product movement, and to prevent governmental enforcement actions rather than manage those actions when they have already begun. Mounting economic pressures means that accuracy in every detail is vital.
You can't afford these challenges.
Risk of Customs-related delays or stoppages
Many of your international orders are likely to have trade compliance errors. Aberdeen Group's study revealed that as many as 25% of international orders were likely to have trade compliance errors and 10% are paying incorrect duty.
According to experts, with the extension of the supply chain comes an increased risk associated with goods in transit through the supply chain. Attention to detail is critical to insure that incorrect or missing information doesn't lead to delays, or worse, fines or penalties - or even the loss of a client. It is essential to keep up with changing Customs clearance regulations to ensure critical links aren't broken and changes don't catch you flat footed.
Lost savings opportunities due to lack of visibility and precision
Lack of visibility and understanding of the regulatory details by supply chain stakeholders can mean lost savings opportunities. HTS classification impacts should be analyzed and comprehended earlier in the development and design stages so that optimization can be done up front. Proactive analysis provides the opportunity to tighten cost estimates for better predictability and insight.
Risk of creating a bottleneck in trade compliance resulting from an increased work load and out-dated manual processes
Trade Compliance is still an out of date manual process. In AMR Research's 2008 study, 47% of respondents indicated they are still using manual processes for estimating duties and taxes. Manual processes lack essential audit trails and defensibility to meet Customs' current Duty of Care requirements. And even if you haven't experienced any issues with Customs yet, once you have a single stopped shipment, you'll be on their radar.
What you need is a precise, defensible, tool that guides you to the answers. That's why we've developed Tradiance, the first productivity toolkit for Import Regulatory Compliance.
The software architecture was guided by a simple premise-direct users to a precise answer while shielding them from the arcane nomenclature and hierarchy of the underlying Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) and Duty Reduction Program eligibility.
The result is one easy toolkit that delivers accurate, defensible classifications and duty reduction claims in a fraction of the time than today's process, backed up by a complete audit trail and historical record.
Read more about Tradiance Classifier and Tradiance Qualifier.