Border Management Challenges

Customs administrations are the nation’s gatekeepers. They protect the country from a wide range of threats to society, illegitimate business, and threats to human, animal and plant health. When goods cross their borders they collect the duties and taxes that, for most governments, represent a crucial financial resource. Their working environment is complex. Globalisation means that businesses spread their operations across continents, yet expect just-in-time delivery of products and components. Customs must grapple with a host of different relationships between manufacturers, importers, exporters, forwarding and customs agents, banks and insurance companies, transporters and other intermediaries, all or any of which may affect the calculation of duties or the assessment of the risk that particular consignments pose.Citizens and companies expect Customs to work efficiently and effectively, yet without imposing unnecessary costs or burdens on their freedom of movement or their ability to trade and invest. Customs have to do a difficult job under growing pressure. Increasingly, they cannot deal directly with the reality of international trade – the physical cargo on the docks or in an airport – but have to work on data about that reality. Information becomes a proxy for the real world, and the quality of that information is a crucial factor in Customs’ performance and success.The amounts of information that flow around the international trading machine are immense. Capturing it and sifting the nuggets from the dross is a challenge for all customs administrations. The quality of their tools – and this increasingly means information technology – is vital.

TATIS Solutions

Twenty-first century challenges require twenty-first century solutions, and TATIS provides high quality and cutting-edge tools that fully enable Customs to meet these demands.  We provide:

§         A Customs Management Application that covers all customs regimes and that is consciously designed to implement international best practices, including the Revised Kyoto Convention and the WCO Data Model.
§         Compliance management tools and services,  such as risk management and valuation control applications and processes, that analyse data and accurately identify targets for customs intervention.
§         Enforcement solutions to ensure that critical information reaches the right user at the right time
§         Accompanying services that ensure the best fit between customs business practices in a client country and the management tools, applications and services that enhance their ability to do a first class job. These services are delivered through our own consulting team that has extensive knowledge and hands-on experience of the customs business, and through our strategic partners, chosen for their ability to complement Tatis and our suite of products in a wide range of operating environments.

Our solutions can thus operate successfully in developed and developing or emerging economies. They are expressly designed to cope, not only with individual countries’ operational challenges, but also with the rapidly growing number of regional agreements, from fully-fledged customs unions like the European Union to free trade areas and economic communities with ambitious goals to integrate their trading and customs mechanisms.

The TATIS Approach 

The TATIS approach is based on global standards and best practices, as exemplified by the conventions and agreements promulgated by the World Customs Organization (WCO).  We focus on the human control behind the trade transaction, and support customs organisations and their management in the deployment of resources to meet the challenges of international trade described above.  Our solutions embody the latest business practices developed in the WCO and build on the best practices of leading administrations around the world. For example, we are progressively incorporating all the necessary functionalities to enable EU customs bodies to meet the challenge of integrating information and computer systems as the 21st century customs union takes shape in the heart of the European continent.  A typical Customs administration has a responsibility to facilitate legitimate trade through maximum transparency and procedural efficiency.  At the same time, it must protect national security at its borders, and enforce a range of health, safety and economic regulations.  The TATIScms (Customs Management Solution) automates the risk analysis process while improving efficiency, accountability and transparency and simultaneously facilitating trade development.  This enables Customs to respond to the conflicting demands of a challenging and increasingly complex operating environment. Furthermore, TATIScms is designed to integrate seamlessly with a range of back-office systems and to operate on various technological platforms. Far from constraining our client administrations to work in a particular way, we start from their technological and business practices and weave our solutions into the fabric of their organisation.  TATIS is continuously monitoring the recommendations, best practices and regulatory decisions of global regulatory bodies.  This ensures, for example, that our Customs valuation solutions are compliant with the current WTO Agreement on Customs Valuation (ACV) as well as best practices adopted by the WCO under the Revised Kyoto Convention.  Our modules that process import and export information are fully compatible with the security-related control requirements reflected in the WCO’s SAFE framework and the related programmes implemented by such standard-setting administrations as the US Customs and Border Protection and the European Commission. By working within established practices, TATIScms achieves accurate and timely reporting of goods, which assures Customs administrations of the availability of all the necessary information that forms the basis of Customs targeting capabilities and ensures maximum facilitation for legitimate trade. 

Reference Implementation 

The TATIScms solution was selected by Luxembourg Customs as its Customs Management System for the future. The TATIScms Export Regime has been in production since July 2007. The Transit regime followed in January 2008. Luxembourg is currently in preparation for the go-live of the Import regime. The TATIScms solution for Luxembourg has been adapted to cater for the extensive functionality as prescribed by the European Customs Union. 

Successes

  • Luxembourg Customs.  The TATIScms solution was selected by Luxembourg Customs in 2005.  The solution was implemented in conjunction with SAP Luxembourg and a phased go-live started in July 2007.  Projects are in progress to comply with the Multi-Annual Strategic Plan (MASP) timelines of European Customs Union. 
  • South African Revenue Services (SARS). SARS selected TATIScms in 2009 as the core of its Customs Modernisation programme.