Customs Filing

Issues and Challenges

Filing export shipment information with the local customs authorities can be a difficult, time-consuming, and expensive process for an exporter. Managing this process on a global basis, where each country has different rules and timing considerations, is a monumental task. When an exporter lacks the required information at the time of export, it causes an unplanned delay. In addition, due to the proliferation of import security requirements throughout the world, many importing countries now require export shipment data before voyage, thereby causing additional unexpected delays.

Many exporters use third parties such as freight forwarders to help manage the export filing process. However, the exporter must still communicate certain data elements to the third party and do so in a timely manner. In addition to an impeded supply chain, incorrect and incomplete filing information can result in significant fines and penalties. Keeping export product data in sync with a single freight forwarder can be a significant challenge. Managing the specific exporting filing requirements for each country across a set of global freight forwarders is practically unmanageable.

How Amber Road Can Help

Amber Road's GTM Export solution manages all the information required by customs for a given country. This includes the automatic processing of the export transaction against Amber Road's Global Knowledge database to determine if there are any export regulations that apply. These regulations span all aspects of the export compliance realm, including verification of the parties, products, and whether countries have passed the export regulations of the local country. The Amber Road proprietary workflow system routes all exceptions to the expert user for speedy resolution. Once all the regulations are checked, the system creates a digital version of the export transaction. The solution uses this data to automatically create the export documents and export customs declaration. The exporter has the option to send this digital export customs declaration to their freight forwarder or communicate it directly to the government filing system.

Amber Road currently supports direct export customs filing in over 10 countries in North America, Europe and Asia and has a product roadmap to add more as demanded by our customers.

The Amber Road solution digitizes the exporter’s global supply chain and creates value by reducing third party fees, reducing labor costs, eliminating penalties and fines, and increasing the speed of the export supply chain.