Trade Group Optimistic About ACE System Development

(Journal of Commerce via CSCB)

Customs and Border Protection is regrouping and re-prioritizing development of the Automated Commercial Environment, members of the Trade Support Network said Monday.

During a telephone news conference, TSN representatives said Customs ordered a review of ACE to identify “core functions” of the new system. The high-level objectives for ACE that had been laid out seven years ago had been lost in a sea of details that bogged down progress.

The network is Customs’ trade advisory group for ACE development.

By focusing on the basics, Customs will be able to turn off the Eighties-vintage Automated Commercial System earlier than planned, and also save the government money, the group said.

Cindy Allen, vice president of customs compliance for Argents Air Express, said that ACE development will become more process-oriented.

“It’s going to more clearly mirror how trade works in the private sector. When we develop software, we don’t look at each individual function that the system is going to do. We look at how we do our work, and develop our systems around that.”

Users also will be able to customize reports…

With ACS, Customs issued standardized reports, and importers would have to order several different reports to get the information they needed.

Customs also reported, however, that there would be about a six-month delay in switching two manifest systems, ocean vessels and rail, from ACS to ACE. Originally scheduled for the end of 2008, ACE vessel and rail manifest systems will be available between March and June, 2009.

Members of TSN said that they were satisfied with the overall progress Customs is making, even though the agency won’t deliver the perfect system once hoped for by traders….

Beginning next year, importers, brokers and others stakeholders in the international supply chain will finally be able to use ACE the way it was intended – to file cargo manifests and Customs entries, manage accounts, pay duties, and secure bonds…