Electronic clearance keeps software providers on their toes

Cross-border customs clearance has changed significantly with the introduction of electronic clearing systems, keeping busy the software suppliers who enable shippers to interface with customs authorities. What was once optional or the province of shipping agents has now become mandatory for road freight shippers, upping the need for effective and userfriendly software. “With road freight electronic clearance now rolling out at land border posts in neighbouring countries, there is a compulsory submission of cargo manifests, and all road freight transporters have to be registered and submit manifests. This keeps us busy accommodating this mandatory submission for companies that maybe did not see the advantage of having their own electronic system or used agents to do this work. But now it’s law that they submit a road freight manifest. One of the fastest-growing components of our business is road freight into Africa,” said J-L Koekemoer, GM at Ship Shape, a supplier of clearing and forwarding software. “It’s on a country by country basis how well the electronic clearance infrastructure works. Most overborder countries have smoothly running operations and we are able to interface with their Asycuda systems. The Ship Shape system generates clearing documents for all the BLNS countries,” Koekemoer said. The system produces all required customs clearing and forwarding documentation, for air, road and sea, while specifically accommodating new airfreight regulations. “For us the biggest thing this year so far has been the implementation of EDI for master air waybills. The system has been in place at most airlines for many years but only became more prominent once the European customs authorities started requiring advance notification of flight manifests last year. All EU-bound flights must report manifests in advance,” he said. In the past, the airlines generally did not charge for the manual capturing of a paper-based MAWB onto their systems. However, since the beginning of 2011 the airlines have been charging anywhere from US$10-20 per MAWB to be captured manually. If it is submitted electronically the charge is significantly reduced to the region of about US$3.00 per electronic MAWB. “It’s a big saving. Real-time information is also now available. In the past forwarders had to spend a lot of time calling airlines to find status updates of their consignments. Now this is available on line, at no cost, and in real time,” said Koekemoer. Mindful that even the most computerilliterate shipper must observe new electronic clearance protocols, the software system was made easy to use and flexible, adjusting to the needs of large corporations or small users. Caption: JL Koekemoer … ‘The biggest thing this year so far has been the implementation of EDI for master air waybills.’