FDA Planning Another Update to Supplemental Guide, Now Prioritizing ACE Entries Over ACS
The Food and Drug Administration will in the coming days release a new version of its supplemental guide for filing in ACE, said Jessica Aranda, FDA’s ACE outreach lead, during a March 15 webinar. The update will include a number of tweaks, bug fixes and clarifications based on feedback it has received from the trade community. FDA also plans on setting up a 24 help desk for ACE in the “near future,” said Aranda.
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Though still lacking a firm mandatory use date since CBP announced its staged implementation approach for ACE in early February (see 1602080042), FDA officials present on the webinar encouraged filers to switch to ACE immediately. FDA has now processed 110,000 entries and counting in ACE, with 11,000 entry lines coming in each day, said Arranda. The agency had only processed around 50,000 in early February (see 1602080042). FDA has since Feb. 28 been prioritizing its resources to support ACE entries over those in the legacy Automated Commercial System (ACS), said Andrew Seaborn of FDA’s Division of Import Operations.
One issue that has come up during the past week is the number of HTS codes FDA filers may include per entry line, said Sandra Abbott, director of FDA’s Division of Compliance Systems. FDA allows filers to submit 999 lines per entry, but requires that only one HTS code be submitted per line, she said. Filers that try to submit more than one HTS code per line will have their entries broken out into additional lines until there is only one per HTS code, meaning FDA is not able to support 999 lines per entry in such cases, said Abbott.