June 2010 ACE TAO Update Discusses Blanket Declarations, Etc.

July 6, 2010 by Cindy Arevalo|Top News

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the Automated Commercial Environment Trade Account Owner June 2010 update. Highlights of the June 2010 update include:

Creating Declaration Records through ACE Portal

CBP states that importers and brokers with ACE Portal accounts are able to create declaration records through the ACE Portal. At this time the following blanket declarations are supported in ACE:

Affidavit of Manufacturer
Importer Certifying Statement
Non-Reimbursement Blanket Statement (Antidumping/Countervailing Duty)
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Certificate of Origin

Broker and/or filers who would like to create declaration records on behalf of importers with ACE portal accounts will require access to the importers’ portal account. Brokers and/or filers will also be able to create declaration records for their non-portal accounts (i.e., importers without a portal account) from their own portal account.

Once the declaration record is created via the Portal, it can be viewed nationally by CBP.

Scheduling ESM 7025 Report to Run Weekly

CBP has posted instructions for scheduling the ESM 7025 report to run on a weekly basis. (CBP has previously notified trade users that forms sent for Automated Commercial System (ACS) filed entry summaries were not consistently appearing in the “Task List” and advised users to run the ESM 7025 report and to schedule the report to run on a weekly basis.)

CBP notes that the form must have been created in ACE for it to appear in the report.

CBP Lists Carrier Benefits of ACE e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1) Pilot

CBP states that it will be deploying new capabilities that will allow rail and sea carriers to transmit electronic manifest data to ACE. Ultimately, CBP will replace the Automated Manifest System with ACE as the CBP-approved Electronic Data Interchange system for rail and sea data submissions.

(CBP has previously stated that it hopes to pilot ACE e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (M1) by the end of 2010. Trade testing of M1 will begin in 2010 no less than 90 days prior to “going live.” CBP will issue a Federal Register notice soliciting volunteers to pilot M1.)

CBP states that rail and sea carriers who choose to participate in the ACE e-Manifest: Rail and Sea (M1) pilot and have ACE Secure Data Portal accounts will find the following benefits:

Sea carrier accounts will have the ability to:

create and maintain conveyance (vessel) data using portal input screens and/or usingthe upload capability into an Excel spreadsheet
download vessel data from the portal into an Excel spreadsheet

Rail and sea carrier accounts will have the ability to:

create and maintain their custodial bond authorization file
designate those entities that are authorized to obligate the bond principal’s custodial bond
run various standard bill of lading, in-bond, manifest and equipment reports with standard data objects
modify standard reports by adding and deleting data objects as well as creating customized reports from scratch
save reports to a “shared folder” for use by others within the account
access two categories of reports: (1) twenty-four hour reports will be refreshed nightly and will contain the latest version of the bill of lading; (2) two hour reports will contain any data that was created or changed within the past two hours. These reports will show all versions of the bill of lading for the past 30 days.

(See ITT’s Online Archives or 04/23/10 news, 10042328, for BP summary of CBP plans for an M1 pilot.)

e-Manifest Filing Exemption for Certain Shipments Consisting Solely of IITs

CBP states that there is no “shipment release type” for the situation where a shipment consists solely of instruments of international traffic (IITs) and the carrier has been contracted to move the shipment under a bill of lading (SCN). This scenario is exempt from the filing of an e-Manifest due to the fact that the system does not handle that situation.

According to CBP, ACE e-Manifest does support the ability to create a manifest, report a conveyance and/or equipment and make a declaration that IITs are present in the conveyance or equipment. For example, if a trailer is outfitted with engine racks, then the carrier can declare the engine racks as IITs whether or not the racks are holding engines and regardless of whether they are owned by the carrier or importer. This is done by selecting one of four options in the equipment or the conveyance screens or the equivalent EDI segments that capture IIT data.

(CSMS #10-000155, dated 07/01/10)