NVOCCs Affected by Sept. 29, 2012 Cutoff Date of Ocean and Rail Use of ACS/AMS

March 29, 2012 by Tim Warren|Customs and Ports

The September 29, 2012, cutoff date for use of Automated Manifest System/Automated Commercial System (AMS/ACS) will affect non-vessel operating common carriers (NVOCCs), terminal operators, port authorities and other entities that receive secondary party notifications in addition to master vessel operator common carriers (MVOCCs). As of Sept. 29, 2012, Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) will be the only acceptable electronic data interchange (EDI).

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection notice was printed in the Federal Register March, 29, 2012 and a Cargo Systems Messaging Service message reminded the industry of those affected by the change. CSMS said the ACE certification environment is now available for trade software testing. Certain Automated Broker Interface (ABI) applications will also be transitioned to ACE as part of the ACE M1 Ocean and Rail Deployment. Backward compatibility won't be supported for the ACS systems so programming changes will be necessary to be compatible with the modified record formats.

The ABI applications impacted are:

ABI In-Bond transactions for ocean, rail, and truck using ABI Application Identifiers QP/WP
Status Notifications using ABI Application Identifier NS
Broker Download information using ABI Application Identifier BD

(See ITT's Online Archives 12032821 for CBP's announcement of the cutoff date.

(See ITT's Online Archives 12032024 for summary stating that the trade should be preparing for the transition from ACS/AMS functionality to ACE M1.)