Impatex customers ready for ICS and EMCS
| Customers of Impatex – the UK’s largest supplier of customs and forwarding software – will be ready for ICS (Import Control System) and EMCS (Excise Movement Control System) when they go live on 1st January 2011. The ICS messaging is being incorporated into both NetFreight – the web-based forwarding system – and ICE – the new-technology successor to Customs Manager. The latter is being gradually phased out. ICS requires airlines and shipping lines, or agents authorised to act on their behalf, to provide security information electronically in advance of shipments arriving in the EU from non-EU countries – even if it is just transiting the EU. Impatex programmers have spent several months on the ICS upgrades to the systems. Although ‘live’ testing has only been made available by HMRC this month, it has said that it will be ‘lenient’ with users for the first 2 months of operation. Impatex customers will also be ready for EMCS FS1, which goes live on January 1st. Similar to NCTS, EMCS will be mandatory for Excise movements within the EU. The first phase of EMCS – FS0, covering ‘Arrivals’ – was introduced earlier this year; it is the second phase – FS1, covering ‘Departures’ – that goes live on 1st January 2011. Programming for FS1 took rather longer than for FS0, requiring around 6 programmer-months to complete. All customers will be updated after trialling, which is only available “live” from December 19th. As EMCS is very specialised, and more likely to be used by larger agents due to the large-scale financial liability for Excise Duty, it will only be made available in the Impatex ICE system. ICE now supports NCTS, EMCS, ICS and frontier imports and exports. This means ICE will be capable of performing all frontier clearances, while Customs Manager will still be used for Inland Duty Management – with Simplified Frontier Declarations (SFDs) performed in ICE being used to update Supplementary Declarations for Imports (SDIs) within Customs Manager. Next year, Impatex will add Duty Management and Customs Processing with Economic Impact (CPEI) – comprising CFSP, Customs Warehousing, IPR, PCC and OPR. Subject to demand, it may also add Intrastat and REDS (Registered Excise Dealers). At the same time, ICE will be adapted to work with all other EU national Customs systems, using a CSP (community service provider) such as BT, Traxon or Descartes. Impatex will decide which CSP to use, based on their relative penetration of all EU Customs systems. Impatex meanwhile continues to develop its web-based NetFreight product: it is currently focusing on US Customs so that NetFreight will be suitable for any mid-range global forwarder requiring an off-the-shelf software solution, in preference to commissioning a bespoke in-house system. Quelle: Impatex Computer Systems Ltd |