Are You Putting Forth Enough ISF Compliance Effort?

Since the beginning of Importer Security Filing (10+2), US importers have struggled with complying and with the recent January 26th enforcement date, many are still trying to find the silver lining in their ISF compliance.  In a webcast sponsored by Integration Point, Virginia Thompson, Manager – Import/Export Operations and Trade Compliance at EuroMarket Designs, Inc. (d/b/a Crate & Barrel), shared how her company is making 10+2 work for them.

During the webcast, there were several topics about which many people had questions.  Over the next few weeks, we will be posting those questions and the answers from Virginia Thompson here.

This first set of questions focused on CBP’s involvement with ISF.

Q:  In general, how does an importer demonstrate to CBP that they are making satisfactory progress towards compliance?

A:  Eventually CBP is going to start looking at the accuracy of data which is mostly going to come from comparing it to your entry.  You want to see your accuracy increasing in a steady formation over all of 2009 and 2010, even in you’re not 100% compliant yet.  Not that it would be bad to have it go up very quickly towards 100% compliance, but I think as long as it’s heading up, that’s really what you need to be doing.  The other thing I would recommend is that if there are any questions or problems you have in a particular situation, contact CBP.  Whether you’re talking to your ABI representative or sending questions to the CBP ISF mailbox (Security_Filing_General at cbp.dhs.gov), letting them know the problems you’re facing is something that in the future, if you’re facing a situation where they’re suggesting liquidated damages are on the line, you can say we have been trying and we told you we were trying.  That will be very important.

Q:  How do you obtain a progress report from CBP?

A:  The progress reports are sent automatically to anyone who is Tier 3.  If you are Tier 3 and you’re not receiving your progress reports, you should contact CBP.  If you’re not Tier 3, then the progress reports should be coming to the filer if they’re being requested.  If you are not the filer, you will need to ask for a copy of your progress report.  A freight forwarder, who is filing for thousands of importers, will get everyone’s data together and it’s their responsibility to break it up.  What the report shows is interesting but not all that useful.  It shoes a very high level percentage broken down by months, like timeliness of filings, how many rejections and errors you had and what type of errors.  The most common type of error is duplicate filings.  This is when two different parties are filing an ISF on your behalf or you accidentally submitted two ISFs for the same BOL number.  The main problem with the data is that it isn’t transaction specific.  You can see you have six different duplicate filings but not which six ISFs were duplicates.  For us that’s not a problem because we have all that data in the Integration Point tool, but if you are using a third party to file your ISFs, you will have to work with them for some kind of reporting mechanism for them to tell you when you have a duplicate filing, late filing, etc.  If nothing else, it gives you an idea of what Customs is looking at when they look at you as an importer, but it doesn’t give you specific information to go back and enter corrections.

Q:  How does CBP match the house bill used on an ISF filing with the master bill used on an entry?

A:  If there is a house bill, then your entry is probably filed at the house bill level, which is also the level at which your ISF is going to be filed. If there is no house bill, then it will be filed at the master (or straight) bill and that will be the same BOL number.  My understanding is that’s why CBP wrote the ISF regulations in terms of what BOL level to be submitted, because they’re trying to make it match the one at which most entries are filed.

Do you have questions about ISF enforcement?  Feel free to post your questions here using the comment box.  We will be happy to reply.  Also, if you missed the webcast, you can view it on-demand here.