U.S. Customs and Border Inspection recently posted a revised version of its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) 101 "Topic" document, which provides a useful general overview of ACE, including the ACE Secure Data Portal, account management capabilities, report capabilities, revenue capabilities, cargo control and release, and entry summary processing. The document also discusses future ACE features.
Automated Commercial Environment (ACE)
The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) is the CBP's electronic system through which the international trade community reports imports and exports to and from the U.S. and the government determines admissibility.
During the annual National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America’s Government Affairs Conference, a Food and Drug Administration official stated that PREDICT1 is currently deployed in 13 of 16 FDA districts.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an overview of the Trade Support Network (TSN) and frequently asked questions on how the TSN provides business input to CBP on modernization issues. TSN committees provide information relating to specific business processes to CBP, including Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) requirement recommendations. These committees are formed and disbanded in parallel with the stages of ACE development. Many of the committees have also formed subcommittees to concentrate expertise in a specific area, such as drawback, bonds, Foreign Trade Zones, etc. (The TSN will be meeting on September 22-23, 2011.)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a new document entitled “Guidance on Entry Deletion and Entry or Entry Summary Cancellation” in order to provide uniform national procedures for requesting such actions in ACS and ACE, and for requesting entry substitutions for EIP/RLF and at land border ports. The Guidance includes a deletion/cancellation worksheet and also discusses liquidated damages.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued CSMS# 11-000219 which contains guidelines intended to provide uniform national procedures for entry deletion and entry or entry summary cancellation in ACS, ACE and for EIP/RLF.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a September 2011 update on its progress with the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). With this update, CBP is pushing back certain dates for the Participating Government Agency (PGA) web services and Document Image System capabilities, announcing additional dates for e-manifest: Rail and Sea (M1), and elaborating on its plans for automated export processing.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted updates on its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) as of September 2011. CBP outlines and provides certain statistics on deployed ACE capabilities, such as e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1), Importer Security Filing (ISF), Participating Government Agency (PGA) access to ACE, etc. CBP also provides an update on the project status of: (i) ITDS initiatives, which include PGA interfaces/interoperability, PGA Message Set, and Document Image System; (ii) full deployment of M1, which is scheduled for the winter of 2012; and (iii) Cargo Release.
In CSMS #11-000217, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reminds that trade that effective September 22, 2011, the use of ABI to file Post Summary Corrections for ACE entry summaries types 01 and 03 will be mandatory. The paper Post Entry Amendments (PEAs) will no longer be allowed for such entry summaries filed in ACE.
The Trade Support Network1 will be meeting on September 22-23, 2011 to continue discussions on the development of the Automated Commercial Environment. One of the many topics that will be covered is the priority ACE entry summary edits needed by the trade, and CBP’s new “filter” concept for meeting this need.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has posted a report to Congress on the establishment of a Risk Assessment Methodology (RAM) to systematically analyze 100% of shipments within CPSC’s jurisdiction to ensure that adequate resources are dedicated to the highest risk shipments as indicated by targeting rules. CPSC believes that this system would result in less “port shopping” and more inspection and sampling, but would also allow consistently compliant products to move faster through the ports.