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PRESS COVERAGE Clearing Canada Customs by phone lines National Industrial Plant & Equipment Magazine MANY COMPANIES view Canada Customs as a bureaucratic web of regulations and procedures impossible to manage without a customs broker. Electronic options and the streamlining which customs has put in place, however, have made it possible to fire your customs broker and clear goods yourself – saving a lot of time and money in the process. The changes in Customs infrastructure make it possible to account for your goods and pay duties and taxes from any desktop in the country. In the tall. Revenue Canada seven making avail able a program that will allow Importers to submit documents for on line release before the goods reach our borders. In the late 1980s. Revenue Canada realized that procedures at our borders were not going lobe efficient enough to handle the increased traffic that the Free Trade Agreement would create. Revenue Canada released Customs 2000: A Blueprint A the Future which outlined a set of new "no hassle" policies that would be necessary in the coming years. These changes have made clearing goods so easy that many companies are finding great benefits from dealing directly with Canada Customs. PRESENT PROCEDURES In 1988 Customs Automated Data Exchange (CADEX) was introduced. This program allowed importers to create their own customs documentation (accounting for the released goods) and transmit them electronically to Ottawa. Revenue Canada encouraged this program by paying for the modem, the line, and any charges associated with the line. Any importer with a PC could simply have their broker put a bar-code on their commercial invoice, have it scanned at the port of entry, and the shipment would be released. The importer then had five business days to submit the accounting forms via CADEX. At the end of the month, Customs would send an invoice for duties and taxes which could be paid at any office specified by the importer. Some companies even arranged with their bank to pay for the goods electronically. With such a straight-for ward system, CADEX enjoyed "an outstanding take-up rate" according to Richard N. Manicom, an assistant Deputy Minister with Revenue Canada. Other improvements and programs quickly followed. A Low Value Shipment (LVS) policy made it possible to submit a summary at the end of the month to account for imports under $1,200. Bonded warehousing shipments were included in the CADEX system in 1994. The most recent change has been a reduction in the security bond Revenue Canada requires. An importer now just posts. a bond for the estimated monthly duties and not the GST payments. With duties rapidly declining, this bond reduction removed a barrier to entry for many firms. THE FUTURE Canada customs plans an even more important change than the bond reduction this year. A program cleverly called ACROSS (Accelerated Customs Release Operations Support Systems) is scheduled to be available to importers by year end. This program will allow an importer to transmit release information to Customs who will make a release recommendation if the goods have not yet arrived or a release decision if the goods have arrived. Essentially, ACROSS will make it possible for a shipment to clear customs within seconds of arriving at the border. Many importers will be able to handle all clearance functions from their desktop while ensuring a smoother flow of goods. BENEFITS FOR IMPORTERS A smoother flow of goods is just one of the many benefits companies are discovering by taking advantage of the procedural changes at customs and bringing the custom clearance process in-house. Others include: savings in brokerage fees, savings in time, and immediate access to importing information for the Customs department as well as for production, purchasing, and accounting departments. Savings in brokerage fees is the most concrete benefit of in-house customs clearance. Sony Canada calculated savings equal to 80 percent of the previous years' brokerage fees. With Sony's importing volume, that adds up to a fair bit of money. RCC Electronics in Toronto estimates that their investment in training and time paid off in less than a year even though they import only 600 shipments a year. Ironically, taking the customs clearance function in-house not only saves money, but it saves time as well. All the time spent supplying information to your broker, following up the shipment and copying invoices and entries is eliminated. Information is keyed in to a PC then transmitted to Customs. An importer receives an electronic release notification when the goods have been released. Hallmark Cards' Iris Jameson says "The time savings alone in import document preparation are running at about 85 percent per truckload." The extra time available can be used to analyze the new and important data your company will have available. One Canadian retailer supplies the estimated transportation cost (obtained from their new database) to the purchasing department so landed costs can be calculated before a purchase is considered. The information obtained also speeds up refunds and drawbacks for the importer. Companies are continuing to discover the benefits of CADEX and other such efficiencies that Canada Customs is offering these days. ACROSS will finally make it possible for an importer to handle all three steps in customs clearance (releasing, documenting, and paying) ... and you thought Canada Customs was difficult to deal with! |
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