Under Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), companies are able to reduce their duty liability on qualifying goods sourced in FTA countries. This might seem like a simple undertaking until you take into account everything that must be done to benefit from continued lower duty costs under an FTA.

Aside from collecting, maintaining, and renewing certificates of origins for qualifying goods, which can be complex, time consuming, and a paper-intensive solicitation process, you can face additional burdening drawbacks when utilizing the FTA process. Some of the drawbacks include:

• Slow and redundant solicitation effort
• High administration costs
• Low response rates
• Reliance on paper certificates
• High cost of post entry duty recoveries
• Poor compliance rates

You may begin to wonder whether it is even worth it to lower your duty costs under FTA. But, when done correctly and with the right help, FTA can have strong financial advantages.

Through FTANavigator, Tradewin’s web-based system, it becomes easy to complete the daunting FTA certificate solicitation process. With this proprietary web-based system, you can manage the solicitation and follow-up process using electronic data. The FTANavigator system will cut the time and effort you will need to put into the solicitation and response process. The web-based interface also allows data entry to be validated based on your specific business rules.

FTANavigator reduces mistakes by screening for specific omissions and errors when certificates are created to prevent the entry and usage of invalid certificates at time of entry. With this shortened cycle-time, you can start seeing results more quickly and transparently with fewer post-entry claims to recover paid duty.

With FTANavigator, the FTA solicitation process becomes less expensive, less complicated, and therefore provides faster collection of information and lower overall costs. Other benefits include:

• Simplifies the administration of FTA certificates
• Maximizes FTA benefits at time of importation
• Reduces the cycle-time required to obtain FTA certificates
• Eliminates the costly reclaim process
• Enhances an importer’s ability to survive a FTA audit by CBP
• Helps meet the Reasonable Care standard

Now you can manage your supplier FTA Certificate data with ease through FTANavigator and gain the highest level of compliance with Customs Regulations.

Reach out to a Tradewin representative today to fully understand how FTANavigator can benefit you.