According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, the delayed "limited deployment" testing of M1 (ocean and rail e-manifest) user screens by CBP officers at the ports of Baltimore, MD; Buffalo, NY; and Brownsville, TX is now scheduled to begin on December 5, 2011. This pilot test will allow CBP to assess the use of the ACE M1 system by its officers and early adopters in the trade.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the draft agenda for its Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting on December 7, 2011. CBP has also posted the following presentations, draft recommendations, and other documents (note that if the links below have expired, these documents are available here):
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a user guide on running Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) reports for rail and sea carriers. The guide provides information on basic functionality of the ACE Reports Tool and outlines detailed instructions on how to access available reports. Instructions address how to view standard reports, how to modify data fields within standard reports, and how to build fully customized reports from a blank slate. Additional documents on the ACE e-Manifest: Rail and Sea are available here.
On November 29, 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued its November 2011 ACE Trade Account Owner (TAO) Update. The TAO provides information on a number of ACE and general trade developments, including the AM-100 report for importers (which replaced the mailed courtesy notices of liquidation), Post Summary Corrections, FMCSA status messages to ACE Truck e-Manifest filers, FAST cards, and Simplified Entry.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its 2011 Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) accomplishments fact sheet listing a total of 37 accomplishments from January to September 2011. Most recently, in September 2011, CBP deployed ACE functionality for monitoring the liquidation of entries and made progress on the Document Image System (DIS):
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message reminding the trade that it will cease emailing Importer Security Filing (ISF) Progress Reports after the December 2011 reports. The reports will be available to recipients through the ACE Secure Data Portal. Those who do not have a free ACE Portal account can access the online ACE Portal Application here.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other officials have discussed the agency's plans to automate the export process at the October 4, 2011 COAC1 meeting and the September and October Trade Support Network (TSN) monthly committee meetings. During the events, officials stated that in order to bring export filing into ACE, CBP has been working with Participating Government Agencies and the trade community to develop user requirements for an automated export manifest in each transport mode. CBP is also working on an interim export manifest as a paperless solution for the ocean mode.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for November 14-18, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.