U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) user guide document providing step-by-step instructions for brokers and self-filers on creating and maintaining entry banks via the ACE Portal. CSMS Message #11-000208 providing this user guide is available here.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued CSMS Message #11-000205, providing the August 2011 ACE Trade Account Owner Update. In this update, CBP states that for quota entries, the Periodic Monthly Statement (PMS) month should be determined using the date of presentation instead of the release date. CBP also provides information on how importers with or without ACE Portal Accounts can email requests for activation of new Importer of Record Numbers for PMS. The update also states that a new column called "C-TPAT FAST ID" was added to the Decal/Transponder Online Procurement System (DTOPS) Conveyance Lookup screen as part of a recent DTOPS release. See future issue of ITT for detailed summary of the TAO update.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a document providing a list of contacts for the Trade Support Network (TSN)'s Committee, Subcommittee, Trade Ambassador, and Technical Advisory Group. The TSN is a group of trade representatives who provide input to CBP on the design and development of modernization projects, such as the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and other projects.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued CSMS message #11-000204 announcing that updated versions of the following ACE User Guides are now available:

At the August 18, 2011 COAC¹ meeting, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials provided an update on the status of various Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) projects and International Trade Data System (ITDS) initiatives that are in development.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection states that over the weekend of August 27-28, 2011, CBP deployed programming to support the M1 ocean/rail manifest program in ACE. Inadvertently, a part of this programming caused some ACS ABI entry summaries to receive a "DB error has occurred" rejection of the summary transmission. This issue was corrected at approximately 11:00am, EDT, on August 29. Filers who have not yet resubmitted entries for which the last response was "DB error has occurred" should retransmit the entry to ABI. (CSMS#11-000203)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has resolved an ACE Transmitter/Preparer issue that surfaced in the afternoon of August 27, 2011 and had caused a "No Transmitter/Preparer Relationship" reject. CBP announced during the morning of August 28 that the issue had been resolved. See messages announcing problem and that CBP was still working on it here and here.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection states that on August 27, 2011, it deployed the code for new capabilities related to rail and sea manifest (M1). There will be no operational use of the new M1 system until it is deemed fully operational and stable. At that time, the agency will notify trade partners that have completed their certification and testing that they can begin transmitting to ACE. CBP is also set to deploy its new ACE Portal capabilities, which are slated to be available to the trade on August 29 and September 6, in a two-phased approach.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is advising the trade of future changes to the ABI Harmonized Tariff Extract reference file and to the ABI HTS Query transaction records to display new output records that will identify tariff numbers that have PGA (Participating Government Agency) indicators associated with the tariff number. CBP is also providing the formats for the new record identifiers, for trade programming purposes.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a press release on CBP Commissioner Bersin's opening of the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee’s (COAC) second meeting held in Long Beach, CA on August 18, 2011. At the meeting, Commissioner Bersin emphasized that partnerships with other countries, other governmental agencies (OGAs), and the trade community are essential for further success in moving forward. Meeting participants also discussed the management by account pilot programs, the Center of Excellence and Expertise (CEE) and Account Executive, which will likely become part of the CEE on October 1. Other topics on the agenda included simplified entry and processing, the role of the broker revision project, and updates on the progress of work being done on the land border security initiatives, air cargo security, Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), etc.