U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message to all ACE report users that states that all Account Management, Authorized Data Extract, Entry Summary, Multi-Modal Manifest, Reference and Transactions reports were not updated last night. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is aware of the issue. The data load is continuing to run. At this time CBP anticipates reports to be up to date by February 16, 2012. A subsequent message will be issued once the data load is completed and reports are up to date. (CSMS #12-000047, dated 02/15/12)

Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for February 6 - February 10, 2012 in case they were missed last week.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted its draft agenda and 22 other documents for the upcoming Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting on February 21, 2012, which include presentations, draft recommendations, and other documents on the role of the Broker, Simplified Entry, Bonds, the Global Supply Chain, and other topics.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the following user guides for the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE):

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its February 2012 "Trade Transformation" document, which includes a modified flow diagram of the Simplified Entry process in the air cargo environment from pre-departure to arrival. The diagram has removed the CBP messaging icons and descriptors and instead more fully describes CBP's interaction with and messaging to filers and carriers throughout the Simplified Entry (SE) process. The updated version also no longer lists the locations for current and planned Centers of Excellence and Expertise.

On February 13, 2012, the President submitted to Congress his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. According to the Office of Management and Budget, his FY 2013 budget proposes cuts and consolidations across the Federal government and includes more than $7.5 billion in administrative savings. The following are highlights from the President's budget proposal and annex, a DHS budget document, and other agency information.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection had earlier issued a CSMS message announcing that as a result of issues identified during ACE outages on February 9, 2012, CBP needed to take the ACE system down for an emergency maintenance period of up to 2 hours starting the afternoon of February 10, 2012 at 3:00 pm EST, with expected completion by 5:00 pm EST. CBP has now issued a second CSMS message #12-000043 (here) stating that the ACE Production System is again available to ACE Portal users and EDI filers.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the following user guides on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE):

U.S. Customs and Border Protection states that a number of problems have recently been reported involving ABI QP inbond entries for ACE Truck Manifest shipments. CBP states the most reliable method for processing ABI QP inbonds -- whether the ACE truck manifest is filed in the ACE Portal or by EDI -- is for the carrier to report the shipment as a regular (PAPS) shipment with bill of lading details (shipper, consignee, quantity, description, etc), and allow the CBP systems to attach the ABI QP inbond to the ACE Truck shipment.