Alan Klestadt @ (212) 973-7722
NCBFAA President Encourages Industry Use of ACE
Washington, DC: In an open letter to its members and the industry, National Customs Brokers and Forwarders of Association of America, Inc. (NCBFAA) President Jeffrey Coppersmith encourages all participants to begin integrating the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) into their business processes. This is especially important given that as CBP rolls out new modules in ACE the corresponding module in ACS will be decommissioned and ACE will be the only system available for that functionality.
“The NCBFAA ACE Strategy Task Group believes that it is no longer a question of whether to migrate to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), but when, and we believe that the time is now,” he said.
Regardless of emotions concerning the pace of development, the implementation of ACE is a foregone conclusion and it will not be abandoned. “While much work remains to be done, CBP has recently begun to show good progress and has adopted essentially all of the recommendations for functional development outlined in the NCBFAA White Papers,” President Coppersmith emphasized. “It is time for our industry to support that development.”
The sooner firms become involved in ACE processing the more competitive advantages they will enjoy, he noted. “CBP has recently announced that the new ‘simplified entry release’ functionality will only be available to ACE filers,” he said. “ACE also provides better data integrity for ACE reports for both customs brokers and their customers.
He pointed out that “The Agency [CBP] is committed to ACE; it will be the system of record for customs business and it behooves our industry to adopt ACE.” For this reason, President Coppersmith believes, “Additional broker live testing is critical to fully debug the ACE functionality that we all will be using in our business.” As more brokers use ACE, NCBFAA and CBP will receive critical feedback that will both inform and hasten further system development and improve functionality as well as create “a more reliable funding stream, allowing for more timely development of the cradle to grave functionality we all need.”
After citing a number of current and future benefits ACE participants will enjoy, President Coppersmith concluded by calling on NCBFAA members to start testing in ACE in order to be ready when multi-modal cargo release becomes functional next year. “Experiment by choosing a single client for filing entries in ACE,” he recommended. “The resulting increase in utilization and experience will allow members to make meaningful suggestions for better ACE development.”
Headquartered in Washington, DC, the NCBFAA represents nearly 800 member companies with 100,000 employees in international trade - the nation's leading freight forwarders, customs brokers, ocean transportation intermediaries (OTIs), NVOCCs and air cargo agents, serving more than 250,000 importers and exporters. Established in 1897 in New York, NCBFAA is the effective national voice of the industry. Through its various committees, counsel and representatives, the Association maintains a close watch over legislative and regulatory issues that affect its members. It keeps them informed of these and other related issues through its weekly Monday Morning eBriefing, and various meetings and conferences throughout the year.
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