System Slowdowns, But No Major Delays, in Days Following ACE Transition
Despite some brief “system slowdowns” for ACE users following the March 31 mandatory use dates for most entry summaries and certain PGA entries in ACE, the issues “have been resolved,” said a CBP spokeswoman. CBP "regrets" the issues and has its "technical teams operating 24/7” to increase “monitoring of ACE system performance to address any additional need for faster response times while maintaining the security and integrity of the system,” she said.
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The slowdowns, which came as the Census Bureau transitioned a new tranche of exporters to ACE on March 28 (see 1604050025) and import filing rates increased in the wake of the March 31 ACE mandatory use date, affected both import and export filers. On March 31, ACE became mandatory for entry summary types 01, 03, 11, 23, 51 and 52, as well as entries under those entry types for shipments with Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service-Lacey Act and/or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration PGA data. CBP and the trade community expected a relatively smooth transition (see 1603300037).
According the CBP spokeswoman, ACE reached two “daily processing highs” that week, “with 64% of cargo release/entries and 89% of entry summaries being filed in ACE.” That “resulted in some processing slowdowns that caused users to experience issues with filings in ACE and ACE/AESDirect,” she said. CBP said the morning of April 4 that it had “encountered an issue that is preventing ACE Entry Summaries from processing” (here). CBP resolved the issue that afternoon (here), but did not finish working through a backlog of entry summaries until hours later (here).
Though the issues caused “delays in receiving some results back,” Geoff Powell of C.H. Powell, president of the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, “did not hear about any major delays at the ports and/or border,” he said. Similarly, Mike Mullen, executive director of the Express Association of America, had “not heard any complaints” about the March 31 transition. However, the March 31 date was “really just for entry summary, and most of those have been filed in ACE for some time,” he said. “May 28 is the date when most entries have to be filed in ACE, and that will be the true test.”