In August 2024, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) introduced new data requirements for cargo destined for or transiting through the U.S. These requirements raised questions. In this article, we provide answers to questions we can address.
The requirements are expected to become effective as per 2024, November 22nd.
Several airlines have declared that the following data fields are now mandatory. These data fields will be transmitted in accordance with the IATA Other Customs Information (OCI) specification¹, as long as the necessary information has been provided.
- Shipper Email
- Shipper Phone Number
- Consignee Email
- Consignee Phone Number
- Customer Account Holder (=Shipper)
- Customer Account Name (=Name of shipper in Scope)
- Customer Account Issuer (=Scope branch office)
- Customer Account Number (=Partner code of shipper in Scope)
The customer account establishment date will be transmitted along with two additional data fields that become available from Scope 24.10. For more details see below.
Please keep in mind that the IATA Cargo-IMP standard does not support some special characters (e.g. underscore) which may be used in email addresses. To comply with this official limitation, Scope has no choice but to mangle those special characters in the FWB/FHL transmission messages.
¹ IATA Other Customs Information (OCI) table is available from the IATA eCSD webpage.
Update for Scope 24.10
From Scope 24.10, additional ACAS data fields for 'Relationship Type' and 'Payment Type' are supported for the messages. These data-fields are populated from the partner master data of shipper / consignee, if maintained. The relevant fields in the partner profile are 'Business Type' (Business/Private person/Intercompany) as well as from the 'Debtor' role the fields 'Payment Type' and 'Invoicing Procedure'. An individual entry per Waybill is not supported.
Additionally, the print menu of air export shipments offers the option to create the 'Established Business Relationship Statement' document.
Update as of October 2nd, 2024 / Scope 24.8
During the last week of September, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) unofficially announced plans to engage in further discussions with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to address existing 'inconsistencies and questions'. However, given that IATA and CBP have already reached an agreement on the transmission of crucial field data through CargoIMP messages, Riege Software has proceeded to incorporate essential field data into the messages. This enhancement aligns with the standardized approach proposed by IATA.
Specifically, these fields pertain to shipments destined for or passing through the United States:
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Phone number of the shipper, if provided, with the assumption that the entered phone number has been verified. Phone number of shipper and consignee had been included previously, but the number of the shipper is required to repeated into a special new ACAS field.
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Email address of the shipper and consignee, if provided, with the assumption that the entered email address has been verified.
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The Customer Account Establishment Date plus partner code of the shipper. This involves utilizing the creation date of the shipper partner's master data and the partner code as default values. Both fields are customizable within the partner master data, under the 'forwarding customer' role, within the 'air export' tab, and through the 'add/edit custom e-AWB address' function: Master Data > Partner ... open a partner > Roles tab > Role Forwarding customer > Air freight export tab
To implement these modifications, updating to Scope version 24.8.35 is necessary.
Riege Software highly appreciates the effort and performance of IATA for endeavoring to find a global solution for the industry within the existing messaging option limitations. We trust that these adjustments will facilitate our customers in proceeding with shipments into the United States of America. We commit to monitoring changes and requirements closely and maintaining ongoing communication with IATA on this matter.
Kindly be informed that augmenting Scope Air Export with all data fields from the CBP wishlist proved unfeasible to implement in Scope due to the urgency and short notice of the enhanced ACAS requirements. We are actively tracking further developments and adapting to additional changes concerning this matter as they arise and become relevant.
Where do I find the data in Scope?
For a shipper, consignee and customer you can fill in the information on the forwarding customer role of the partner.
Master Data > Partner ... open a partner > Roles tab > Role Forwarding customer > Airfreight export tab
For an agent you can fill in the information on the agent role of the partner.
Master Data > Partner ... open a partner > Roles tab > Role agent > Airfreight
