Trade Compliance: Systems + Knowledge
Two Peas in a Pod
As you have no doubt heard, the World Customs Organization is pushing out a significant change to the Harmonized System (HS), meaning many of the commodities moving through your supply chain could have a new code come January 1, 2022. These codes affect imports and exports in nearly every country and determine duty rates, free trade agreements, and more. Based on what you ship, this could be of great impact or none. However, it is something you need to review for every country with which you import and export, and the clock is ticking.
But where do you start? The most effective way to handle these changes is with systems and knowledge. The 2022 Harmonized System changes are shaping up to be the biggest set of changes for product classifications in the last 10 years. Thanks to some information published by certain countries and agencies, we can leverage the use of systems to help navigate these HS changes. Depending on the systems you use (hopefully, it’s Tradeflow® in which case this part is easy!), you should be able to identify the tariffs and the corresponding SKUs that have a change. You will need to do this globally. In the case of a change, some are relatively easy and are 1 to 1, meaning a systematic solution to change the tariff is easy.
What do you do when the systems on their own are not enough?
In other cases, new headings/subheadings are created, removed, or split. In these instances, you need more than just a system. You need someone knowledgeable to review your products and decide on the correct classification. This takes time, and we only have about a month left to make these changes.
If you utilize a system today, start leveraging it to determine how these changes affect you and your company in all the countries you ship to and from. If you don’t have a system, we recommend our partner company, Tradeflow®, which offers an easy to implement and operate web-based compliance management software. With a track record of offering this software for almost 20 years, there is stability in knowing that it’s backed by a strong, financially stable company.
If you need knowledgeable classification experts, be it for North America, Europe, APAC, or India, we have people who can help. If you need to stand up a system, give our folks at Tradeflow® a call.
