On August 18, 2011, CBP and other officials presented their draft proposals for modeling new simplified entry, summary, and financial processes for imports at a COAC¹ meeting, achieving their first project milestone on time. Finalized models are due by September 16, with a final report and proposal slated for delivery on September 30.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection stated on August 19, 2011 that it was set to deploy new code for capabilities related to rail and sea manifest (M1) on August 20, 2011, and that there would also be code for new ACE Portal capabilities that would be available to the trade in a phased approach. However, CBP issued a new message on August 21 stating that due to an unanticipated technical difficulty, deployment would be delayed one week. CBP also stated that a CSMS message would be issued with the new deployment date as soon as the schedule is confirmed.

On August 18, 2011, a COAC¹ meeting was held in Long Beach, CA where CBP and COAC members discussed plans to develop recommendations for broker reform by October, roll out full-blown Centers for Excellence and Expertise in October, pilot simplified entry and financial process in October, expand the air cargo advance screening pilot to additional types of carriers and countries, and add export processing to the Automated Commercial Environment.

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

On August 16, 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted an update on the status of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). CBP outlines and provides certain statistics on deployed ACE capabilities, such as ACE Secure Data Portal, Periodic Monthly Statement (PMS), Participating Government Agency access to ACE, electronic filing of e-Manifest: Truck, entry summaries, and Importer Security Filing (ISF).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that registration is now partially open for CBP's free webinar on ACE Post Summary Corrections that will be held on September 1, 2011. CBP is also accepting questions by August 24, 2011 in order to tailor this webinar to specific areas of interest.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that it is hosting a series of free webinars to provide more timely and up-to-date information to the international trade community on CBP trade policy. The next upcoming trade outreach webinar will be held on September 1, 2011 and will focus on ACE Post Summary Corrections.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a final rule to discontinue mailing paper courtesy notices of liquidation for entry summaries that are filed in the Automated Broker Interface (ABI), effective on approximately September 30, 2011. Importers of record whose entry summaries are not filed through ABI will continue to receive paper courtesy notices of liquidation on CBP Form 4333-A.

According to CBP sources, the agency's recent Information Notice on e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (M1) contains information on the general enhancements to the ACE Portal for all users that will be included with M1's code deployment later in August 2011. General Portal enhancements include new shared report functionality for all ACE report users, while ocean and rail improvements include automated in-bond authorizations for transportation companies with custodial bonds.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a fact sheet and presentation on the work being done to model simplified entry and financial processes for imports, as called for by Commissioner Bersin, who asked industry and government to consider how import trade processes can be re-engineered to meet the technological needs of the 21st century. CBP hopes to pilot these models in fiscal year 2012.