How Automating Trade Compliance Efforts Can Save Time and Money

International shipping and manufacturing are becoming increasingly detailed and complex. With this comes an array of dreaded rules and regulations. Often, shipping and logistics managers are tasked with completing pages and pages of compliance reports for each shipment to ensure smooth transportation.

And, as luck would have it, compliance checkpoints aren’t something manufacturers can just sweep under the rug. In fact, the average cost of enterprise-level compliance fraud is around 1.1 million Euro. Besides the obvious risk of fines, there are other issues that arise if an organization fails to monitor compliance issues. These include shipping delays, supply issues, lost shipments and missed delivery deadlines. In some cases, failure to comply could result in a more complex and lengthy clearance processes for each export. Worse still, you could have your export privileges withdrawn. All of these factors contribute to an organization’s overall credibility and the strength of its customer relationships.

Luckily, there are innovative solutions that take the guess work out of trade compliance efforts. In this post, we’ll take a look at what trade compliance automation entails and how these solutions can help manufacturers save time and money—not to mention a few headaches.  

How Does Trade Compliance Automation Work?

Compliance automation solutions take the guesswork out of trade compliance management processes. Logistics managers can stay up-to-date on new regulations and monitor compliance processes across global shipping sites. They can also share compliance reports with curious customers or partners.

With a cloud-based solution, logistics managers can effortlessly handle all facets of compliance regulations from a single application. This means that all stakeholders have 24/7 access to specific compliance documentation. These include customs reporting and even international product classification codes. Logistics managers no longer have to waste time filling out duplicate paper reports or answering repetitive questions. All of the answers are available online at the click of a button.

Trade compliance solutions help global enterprise industrial manufacturers streamline compliance processes by:

• Monitoring changes to compliance regulations in real-time by checking international and government lists. Key stakeholders are then notified of updates

• Automatically running background checks on countries, carriers or prospective partners. This helps organizations to avoid engaging with any entities with red-flags or embargos

• Storing compliance data and license information to quickly identify and complete license requirements with minimal manual research or input

• Track and report past compliance metrics to continuously improve compliance processes and workflows

Mitigating Risk, Increasing Efficiency and Protecting Your Bottom Line

With automated compliance management tools, global organizations can proactively mitigate risk, protect employee resources and time and save money. Manual processes that used to take hours are done in a matter of minutes, with minimal risk of errors. Detailed audit reports help build credibility with new customers and partner. Furthermore, streamlined processes reduce the risk of financial penalties and fines.

As a result, organizations that focus on international trade and shipping can now provide unparalleled customer service while increasing internal efficiencies.

Compliance automation solutions help international logistics managers see results across the board by:

Maximizing internal efficiencies

Instead of relying on manual processes, automated compliance tools take the guesswork out of compliance. By combining historical data, real-time regulation information and previously stored customer and partner profiles, a trade compliance solution creates a holistic compliance workflow in the online solution. Logistics managers are therefore free to focus on critical issues, such as working 1:1 with customers or developing relationships with partner organizations.

Tracking critical processes

For an organization to be truly risk-free, every single process, workflow and report must be tracked and documented as well as organized and stored for future reference. Known as the compliance audit trail, it’s a critical part of how global manufacturers comply with international regulations. Therefore, for a trade compliance automation tool to be successful, it must be able to cross-reference an organization’s compliance audit trail with various international regulations and customs requirements.

For international manufacturers themselves, the ability to track critical audit processes is also a great way to build credibility in the marketplace and can lead to an increase in new customers, new partners and, most importantly, the overall bottom line.

Keeping tabs on sanctions and denied parties

Global trade compliance solutions help export teams stay on top of transactions to remain compliant with the safety standards of individual countries. This allows managers to not only identify denied parties, but also controlled products and embargoes or sanctioned countries.

Staying on top of compliance

No matter when an organization needs to run trade compliance checks—whether at the beginning of a customer relationship, during a partner screening or for a border request—a global trade compliance solution makes it easy to visualize all aspects of a specific compliance request, track any additions or edits and take action on any issues. Compliance automation makes it easy to do due diligence as well as stay on top of any compliance errors, effectively eliminating any risk of compliance penalties, fines or shipping errors.

By leveraging Trade Compliance, international manufacturers can start to proactively streamline internal processes and operations to deliver the best customer experience possible.