Customs Procedure Management
Configurable customs procedure automation that receives operational movements, applies business rules and triggers customs actions, declarations, documents or exceptions.
At a glance
| Area | Description |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Acts as the bridge between ERP/TMS/WMS transactional data and customs execution. It interprets goods movements, determines the applicable customs procedure, enriches data, creates instructions or documents, and routes exceptions to operational users. |
| Typical inputs | Goods receipt/issues, deliveries, transport data, item lines, values, Incoterms, classification, origin, warehouse and partner data. |
| Typical outputs | Customs regime decision, enriched transaction data, instructions, documents, status updates, error worklist entries and audit logs. |
| Business value | Reduces manual interpretation of customs flows, secures repeatable process execution, supports special procedures and reduces the risk of missing or inconsistent customs data. |
Core capabilities
- Inbound ERP/TMS/WMS movement capture and transaction object creation
- Configurable business rules for regime selection and data enrichment
- Procedure engine to trigger customs actions or document creation
- Support for import, export, re-export, transit and special procedures
- Customs value, Incoterm, origin or classification checks
- Exception routing to error worklists for manual remediation
- Generation of broker instructions or customs documents
- Audit archive of transaction data, rules applied and user decisions
Business challenges addressed
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Need to manage goods movements under customs control with reliable stock and audit trail.
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Manual customs procedure decisions create risk in bonded warehouse, inward processing, outward processing, temporary import or transit flows.
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ERP physical stock and customs stock must be reconciled to detect lost and found situations.
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Duty payment and release to free circulation require controlled, traceable processes.
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Customers need configurable processes rather than customer-specific hardcoding.
Functional description
The customs legislations in the different countries or regions provide for a large variety of different procedures and processes, allowing the economic actors to reduce the customs duties and administrative overhead. To profit from these duty reductions and simplified procedures it is required to provide a consistent, repeatable, and well controlled internal processing of all information leading into the preparation of a declaration to the customs authorities. The MyTower GTM Customs module is the bridge from the system managing the transactional data (ERP, TMS), the trade master data from MyTower GTM Classification and Origin to the communication to the customs authority, either directly or via a customs broker.
The Solution provides the following Benefits:
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Preparation of information sent to the customs broker to prepare the declaration, leading to a reduction of the brokerage fees.
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Support of all duty relief procedures
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Compliance with customs requirements for access to the Customs Warehouse, inward processing, outward processing, and other procedures related to duty relief
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Visibility of financial risk and required customs guarantees
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Avoidance of double data entry and related reduction of processing cost and risk
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Reduced effort to comply with customs reporting requirements
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Reduced effort to provide information and data in case of customs audit
The solution consists of several main elements:
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A logical representation of the supply chain transactions
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A representation of the customs data,
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A Business Rule engine
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Connection to the MyTower customs tariff database
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A document creation engine
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Connection to the Customs Broker Management Solution
Modelling of supply chain transactions
To prepare the data for the customs declaration and to find the optimal customs procedure the MyTower Customs management solution receives from an ERP or TMS system all required parameters from the supply chain transaction. This can be e.g. the Good Receipt or Good Issue record, the Transport Document or any other records. This information is stored, enriched and archived in the supply chain transaction object in MyTower GTM Customs Management. All subsequent processes are based on the information in this object.
Declaration data model
Following the data model of the World Customs Organisation and the European Community (WCO Data Model, EU CDM) the MyTower GTM Customs Management solution stores a representation of the customs declaration, its shipment and line items. This data model can also be exchanged with external parties via EDI.
Business Rule Engine
The MyTower Customs Management Solution enables the selection and management of the customs processes and regimes which lead to minimization of the payable customs duties with a help of a flexible business rule engine. The business rule engine can be configured to derive arbitrary values to be put into the fields of the customs declaration based on data found in the supply chain transaction.
In addition, the solution can track inventory and previous transaction to profit from special procedures like
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Bonded Warehouse
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Inbound Processing (Processing under Customs Control)
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Outbound Processing
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Returns
The support of these procedures is currently limited to several specific countries. In some countries special certifications are required for software system supporting these procedures. Currently the MyTower Customs solution is not yet certified in these legislations. The possibility to acquire these certifications will need to be investigated on a case-by-case basis.
Customs Tariff Database
The system is supported by trade content data (provided by MyTower or by 3rd parties) which allows the pre-calculation and control of the customs duties payable and compare the results with the duties claimed by customs ( via the information returned from the customs brokers).
Document Creation, Management and Archiving
The solution provides the record keeping functionality required by Customs Authorities to be able to use simplified procedures.
Provided with all relevant information from the ERP or TMS system, the solution can be setup to prepare the customs invoice or other documentation required by customs.
Typical workflow
- Receive goods movements from ERP/WMS/TMS or create controlled manual movements.
- Apply business rules to determine customs status, regime, consumption mode and required actions.
- Process incoming or outgoing movements through configured procedures.
- Route incomplete or incorrect movements to the error worklist for correction and resubmission.
- Maintain customs stock and reconcile with ERP physical stock.
- Trigger duty payment, e-globalization or broker instructions when needed.
- Archive documents and expose customs KPIs for operational monitoring.
Integration landscape
| Integration point | Purpose |
|---|---|
| ERP / WMS / TMS | Inbound movements, stock snapshots, orders, materials and warehouse locations. |
| Customs Broker Management | Generated declaration data and status synchronization for duty payment or customs declaration processes. |
| Classification | Commodity codes and classification status can be checked before movement acceptance. |
| Document Management | Supporting documents, CSDs and audit evidence stored per movement. |
| Analytics | Customs stock, duty, declaration linkage and movement reporting. |