GTS as a Customs clearance solution

[Former Member]

I understand GTS can be used to create and transmit Customs documents to Customs for Customs clearance. That would include receiving and transmiting invoices that include Country of origin, harmonized codes, etc. Would appreciate some input from users who are clearing Customs in Canada as to the capabilities of the system. Is this a complete Customs clearance system that has all variables stored so that the document can be created after entering only country of origin, price, currency, etc for each line on the invoice? Are exchange rates and other variable updated daily or speedily when changes happen? How would you rate the performance of the system?

[former_member215181]

Hi Neil,

GTS is at its best when coupled to an ERP system ("feeder system" in GTS parlance).  Most usually that would be an SAP R/3 or ECC system, but could be something else entirely.

From your question, I'm not sure if you're referring to Import or Export Declarations.  If the latter, then the usual technique is to create invoices (commercial or proforma) in the feeder system, and transfer those to GTS as Export Declarations.  Apart from the Transport details, all of the necessary data is transferred or determined in a format ready to send electronically to the Customs Authority.  Accompanying documents may also be generated directly from the GTS Declaration.

If we're talking about Imports, it's most usual for the Declarations to be created from the transfer of Goods Receipts, but other options are also available as standard.  Again, most of the necessary data can be transferred or determined, so very little additional work is needed to make the clearance.  Inventory-managed regimes such as Bonded Warehouses can also be modelled and managed by the system.  Exchange rates and Tariff Codes may be entered manually or uploaded from data files; the latter being available from a number of approved providers.

The standard GTS system comes complete with localisation for many countries, but not yet Canada.  Implementation in Canada would require some customisation, notably mapping and conversion between the GTS iDoc structures and the file formats specified by CA Customs.

The system in daily use - especially in a high-volume operation - is a very efficient tool and provides excellent business efficiency.  For the implementation project, your main challenge would be to find a suitably experienced and competent consultant!

Regards,

Dave

[Former Member]

Hi Neil,

Yes, SAP GTS offers a comprehensive solution to interact with the Customs Authorities of majority of the World countries. This is due to the fact that SAP GTS solution comes certified to interact with those Customs Authorities. In this case, SAP GTS acts a centralised solution for the business and caters to their trade needs in terms of trade compliance, Customs interaction/processing and  Trade Risk Mitigation. Specially, when we talk in terms of Canadian trade environment, I would say  yes ,that SAP GTS provides a robust and automated interaction with Canadian Customs Authority. In this case, transaction data comes to the SAP GTS system from the Feeder (Logistics) system . This data is combined with Trade specific data from SAP GTS master data to provide complete trade documents/data for business to refer. This data as per the requirement of Business and Customs Authorities.  In terms of Data like exchange data etc., I would say that these needs to maintained in the system as master data or can come across  from the Feeder system and their update can also be automated as well.

For more reference, I would ask you go to the SAP GTS help portal as below to study and understand the SAP GTS solution

https://help.sap.com/grc-gts

I hope ,this will be helpful to you. For more queries, please let me know it.

Regards,

Aman