International trade has increased tremendously over the last few decades. There is a demand for quality goods and services from across the world. The rise in per capita income has fueled the growing demand for luxury goods.

The boom in the e-commerce industry has also played a key role in augmenting cross-border trade. As economies all over the world are open, there are opportunities for businesses to compete and tap the international market. Moreover, all the countries are promoting import and export to match the deficit and trade surplus. 

Exporting goods to a foreign country is important for governments for accumulating valuable foreign exchange and providing employment to many of its citizens.

Earlier the process of trading was comparatively simpler, but now, it has become complicated with countless aspects to be taken care of. Care must be taken that the import-export is smooth and clean.

Every transaction must be transparent and no activities are carried out that may be a threat to the people or internal stability of the country. Hence, the customs department is set up by every country to oversee the trade. 

Customs Clearance: 

It is the process of overseeing the import and export from and to a country by the government authority known as the customs department. 

Role of Customs Department

The customs department is one of the revenue-generating departments. Hence, its primary role is to collect customs duty or taxes on the goods which are transported in or out of the country.

Secondly, it ensures that the trade is carried out according to the regulations suggested by the authorities.

They check the goods and verify the related documents before clearing the shipment. The customs department is entitled to take legal action against the parties trying to bypass the law and manipulate the given norms. 

Custom Clearance Software

Customs clearance is an important part of the global customs logistics process. However, the process of freight forwarding customs clearance is becoming more stringent day by day.

Importers, exporters, freight forwarders and traders are finding it difficult to deal with customs regulations, tax calculation, assessment of geo-political developments, legalities, insurance, documentation etc. 

Companies are forced to hire experienced domain experts to take care of the customs issue or they have to outsource it. Both options are costly, which increases the overhead cost and hinders the profit of the companies.

In addition, they have to allocate a large chunk of time and money to customs-related activities instead of core business roles. Hence, to overcome these challenges and ease the process, customs clearance software is developed. 

This software package ensures that the logistics process is streamlined and customs clearance is smooth by preparing the required documents, accurate calculation and payment of duty and completing the legal obligation along with keeping a track of other important custom freight solutions. 

Advantages of Customs Clearance Software:

There are numerous advantages of incorporating customs clearance software in your business. A few of them are listed below.

Documentations:

Customs clearance requires countless documents which have to be presented by the freight forwarder or shipper to the customs department. It is difficult to prepare and keep a track of the paperwork manually. There are chances that a few documents would be missing or incomplete.

This causes a delay in customs clearance and may hamper the delivery and further activities. However, the software helps in preparing all the required documents which have to be presented to the authorities.

There are no errors or ambiguities in the papers prepared by the software. This reduces unnecessary issues and reworks in order to clear our shipments. 

Calculation & Payments of the Duties:

One of the primary aims of the customs department is to collect taxes depending on the shipments. It is important to pay these taxes accurately for clearing our shipments.

Hence, it is equally important to calculate the exact tax on a particular item depending on its weight, volume and type.

Here the customs clearance software comes in handy. The software calculates the duties by considering all the related factors and facilitates its payments through secure gateways. This reduces the time and the shipments are cleared without any hurdles. 

Cost-effectiveness:

As stated above, custom clearance is a tedious job. It requires dedicated manpower of domain experts to do the job. The hiring of such experts is a costly affair. Nextly a company can outsource the custom clearance task to a service provider which excels in such work.

Again, outsourcing also takes away a chunk of capital. On the other hand, customs management software is a one-time investment. And it is very less compared to hiring or outsourcing. The software performs the same tasks with more speed and accuracy. Hence, it saves a lot of money for the company. 

Automation of Tasks:

In the process of customs clearance, many processes are repetitive in nature. The customs clearance task automates such tasks and can save time spent on them when done manually. 

Track of Geo-political Scenarios:

Customs clearance is an internal matter. Every country makes its own policy to regulate trade in and out of their country. Hence, there are different sets of rules when it comes to different countries. For example, customs clearance in Kazakhstan is going to be different from customs clearance in Senegal or customs clearance in the UK for that matter.

The customer clearance software keeps a track of all such geo-political relations among the countries and assists in preparing documents accordingly. It also keeps track of and updates itself about the changing political development and changes in customs regulations. 

Insights:

A customs clearance software keeps records of every transaction, documents used and tax receipt so that it can be produced instantly. Moreover, this software gathers vital insights about our business which are used to assess our progress and study our shortcomings. 

Collaboration:

Customs clearance software facilitates communication between two departments, customers and other stakeholders. It maintains transparency and the required information can be accessed from any location.

Thus, it is mandatory to use customs management software for ease of the trading business.