U.S. Customs and Border Protection has updated its schedule for deploying additional functionality to the Automated Commercial Environment.
ACE functionality, including data reports, can help importers and others boost compliance and duty savings efforts. For more information, please contact attorney Lenny Feldman via email or at (305) 894-1011.
Air Cargo. An enhancement still scheduled for March 2025 will enhance the 1X coding in the air environment to facilitate the movement of held cargo.
Aluminum. Updates to the entry summary user interface create/edit functionality for non-ABI entries related to an increase in the Section 232 tariffs on imports of aluminum from Russia are still anticipated in January.
Bills of Lading. The deployment of functionality to release ocean cargo at the lowest shipment level, which will also provide a new user interface for container freight station operators to view information as released at the lowest shipment level, remains on hold.
Business identifiers. CBP has pushed back from April to June 2025 functionality that (1) expands the global business identifier proof of concept enrollment process by enabling trade users to submit one, two, or all three of the global identifiers for any party type and (2) adds an additional free text field allowing filers to input additional descriptions about the party/GBI number provided.
Collections. An enhancement deployed in October updated the lockbox payment posting logic for overpayments and underpayments of bills.
Other planned deployments include the following.
- enabling authorized users to unarchive a previous collection to make an adjustment using that collection (Oct. 26)
- providing the necessary logic to properly post seized refunds upon the transition from the CBP Treasury Forfeiture Fund accounting workload to Treasury’s Administrative Resource Center service provider (October)
- adding a cash receipt number to a collection (October)
- providing a new user interface that allows CBP personnel to monitor, track, and manage serial numbered forms pads (December)
- integrating non-tariff bills into the existing interest service within the ACE collections billing module and will include automatic non-tariff interest rate calculation for bills as well as the addition of non-tariff interest rates to the interest calculator screen (January)
- integrating non-tariff bills into the existing debt management lifecycle within the ACE collections billing module and will include late pay penalty calculations for bills, a new automated dunning letter, and new debt management-related fields for dispute dates (March)
Court Proceedings. CBP still plans to deploy in March 2025 an enhancement creating a new record type in the ACE court case module to create administrative records for Enforce and Protect Act and forced labor cases brought to the Court of International Trade.
De Minimis Shipments. An update requiring the estimated date of arrival when filing an entry type 86 (de minimis shipment) was released July 25. CBP plans to further automate de minimis enforcement by (1) providing a warning in ACE when a shipment may exceed the $800 per person/per day threshold (set for Jan. 11, 2025) and (2) rejecting ineligible shipments in ACE (no sooner than Feb. 11, 2025).
CBP still plans to release in February 2025 an enhancement automating the removal and restoration of entry type 86 test participants.
An enhancement adding bond validations for low-value shipments, requiring carriers and operators to provide CBP with any cargo held or selected for inspection and enabling CBP to verify active bonds in ACE, is still anticipated in October 2025.
DIS Submissions. Enhancements to the Document Image System to facilitate document submissions via electronic data interchange for both import and export vehicle-related transactions were deployed Sept. 28.
Disabling the option to submit form 1302A (cargo declaration – outward with commercial forms) in the DIS for outward vessels is still anticipated on April 1. Once this is done such forms will have to be submitted on paper or via ACE Export Manifest.
Event History. CBP successfully deployed this month an update that (1) added an event history section to the liquidation record in the entry summary user interface to provide users with a complete audit trail for all liquidation record actions on an entry summary and (2) removed the ability to manually assign a liquidation approver.
Exports. CBP continues to plan for spring 2025 an enhancement providing a trade-facing electronic export manifest portal to enable the filing of truck EEM bills of lading prior to departing the U.S. for Mexico or Canada and to allow carriers to add account data.
FAST. CBP deployed in October an enhancement updating the ACE manifest user interface to (1) add the search option “search shipper/consignee” and a feature to add shippers and consignees and (2) add the ability to convert historical data that does not have FAST information on carrier, consignee, org broker, and shipper accounts.
In-bonds. CBP implemented in October enhancement improving the air in-bond process by enabling the Electronic Export Manifest system to link in-bonds with ACE Multi-Modal Manifest, which will accept new messages from EEM that perform in-bond arrival/export/cancel requests for air carriers.
Mass processing. Functionality enabling CBP users to simultaneously update multiple entry summaries to a specific version number or their most recent version number has been moved up to Oct. 24.
PGAs. CBP still plans to deploy this month an update adding broker/filer modernized ACE portal account access to documents send by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Quotas. CBP deployed Sept. 23 an enhancement creating an ACE validation to prevent the use of post-summary corrections to change non-quota entries to quota entries.
Reports. An update adding a prompt in ACE Reports to identify the subject company whenever a report is run or scheduled is still anticipated in October. This change will enable CBP to restore the ability for trade users with access to more than one account to schedule reports for delivery by e-mail.
Sanctions. An enhancement implementing the collection of new data elements to enable targeting of merchandise subject to sanctions on Russian diamonds and seafood remains scheduled for April 2025.
Steel. CBP still plans to deploy Nov. 21 an enhancement supporting the addition of the steel melt and pour field to CBP Form 7501.
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