SAP Global Trade Services application is now United States Custom and Border Protection-certified

ERP bellwether SAP said this week its SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) application has received certification from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) for Entry Summaries.

SAP describes the SAP GTS as a global trade management solution geared to help support export and import management, screening and embargo, license and preference determination, foreign trade zone and other special customs procedures like processing China-based trade activities.

SAP said that it is the first enterprise software vendor to receive CBP’s ACE certification.

As reported in the January print edition of Logistics Management, CBP’s ACE is set to replace the Automated Commercial Environment, effective February 28. And by that deadline freight intermediaries are required to transmit cargo release and entry summary for U.S. imports, as well as the first three Partner Government Agency data sets, following ACE processes and technical requirements.

This undertaking aims to streamline and leverage more current technologies and process changes, improving the exchange of information between trade, CBP, and 47 different federal agencies through a single government window (Single Window), or the primary system through which the trade community will report imports and exports and allow the government to determine admissibility.

SAP said that by using ACE as the Single Window manual processes will be streamlined and automated, paper will be eliminated and the international trade community will be able to more easily and efficiently comply with U.S. laws and regulations.

Bruce Romney, senior director of solution marketing for SAP Solutions for GRC (Government, Risk, and Compliance), told LM that SAP GTS is comprised of capabilities that have been in the marketplace for the last 12 years, with more than 2,000 customers using it today. Customers can license individual pieces or capabilities of GTS or can license it in a bundle format. 

Some of the key facets of GTS outlined by Romney include: restricted party and denied party screening; supporting customers through the export and import classification processes with data exchanged back and forth through the materials master and classifications against different tariff codes; generation of export documents that can be communicated electronically with customs brokers or customers can file directly through ACS for imports and AES for exports (before ACE was introduced).

“We have customers who use brokers to do their filing, but we also have customers who want to file directly through global filing,” he said. “We have many customers who do that in the U.S. and we also support a dozen or so more certified interfaces with other customs organizations worldwide. The U.S. is not the only one and the benefit is anyone who wants to do their filing within the SAP GTS system as the source for their filing, then our customers know we are monitoring the environment and are making sure they can continue to do business as usual uninterrupted as we are monitoring the interfaces in the U.S. and globally.”

On the U.S. import side, Rommey SAP is currently certified on the ACE side for entry summary, foreign trade zone, and ISF.

And going forward, Romney said SAP will continue to monitor the different opportunities global importers and exporters have, as well as look at companies that want to leverage different trade agreements globally, with SAP able to support the management, calculations, and certificate of origin on the trade preference sites.

“We are looking to help our customers become not only just effective in what they are doing for their business and making sure imports and exports are uninterrupted and streamlined, but we are also looking at helping them be more strategic in their organizations by taking advantage of improving the bottom line and getting that visibility at the CFO level,” said Romney. “That is because at the CFO level there are many savings opportunities, and as companies look to automate their import and export functions there is a lot of automation available from a trade preference perspective. We are looking to help companies be more strategic in their sourcing decisions, as well as other special customs procedures like order processing, bonded warehouses, or general or processing trade in China or foreign trade zones.”

SAP GTS is an area of focus for SAP, with the company looking to support its customers with existing requirements like the ACE certification announced this week and helping them be more strategic in their global trade operations, according to Romney. 

“We believe that our continued investment in SAP Global Trade Services has helped us to maintain consistent leadership in the global trade management market,” said Kevin McCollom, global vice president, Solutions for Governance, Risk and Compliance, SAP. “With our commitment to continuous innovation, including the recent announcement for ACE certification, we can help our customers to automate and streamline import and export processes. SAP is currently the only major enterprise software vendor to have achieved this certification.”