Filers May Submit Line-by-Line Changes Electronically After Reconciliation Comes to ACE, CBP Says
The addition of reconciliation to ACE on Oct. 1 will allow filers to submit line-by-line changes to CBP electronically, rather than a hard copy spreadsheet, Lena Torrence of CBP’s Commercial Operations, Revenue and Entry division said during a recent webinar. The legacy Automated Commercial System currently only allows filers to submit the reconciliation header and association file, but as of Oct. 1 filers will also submit electronically all line-item changes to classification, special classification under tariff heading 9802, value and free-trade agreement eligibility, she said.
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As previously discussed by leadership of the Trade Support Network (see 1604220031), blanket flagging will no longer be available in the new system as of Oct. 1, Torrence said: “The trade will have to do an entry by entry flagging.” But CBP is also eliminating the need for importers to submit an application letter to participate in reconciliation, Torrence said. “The system has automatically put all of the importer records to ‘yes’ for reconciliation participation eligibility,” she said. Importers will only have to obtain a reconciliation bond rider, and will be eligible for reconciliation once the bond rider is attached to the importer’s account. Nor do importers have to tell CBP what kinds of future changes they will be flagging, Torrence said.
What is not changing is that, in order to file type 09 entry, the entry has to be flagged “for the same issue,” Torrence said. “If it is only flagged for value the [entry] can only be reconciled for value,” she said. Similarly, the surety code and bond number has to be the same from the underlying entry to whatever is on the association file for the type 09 entry, she said. CBP recently posted a recording and transcript (here) of the webinar, which was held Aug. 4.