What is ACE?

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is hard at work developing and improving the new Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system.  Since many who work in the global trade arena will be affected to some extent by its implementation, it makes sense to understand a bit more about it.  Part of our goal is to share knowledge about upcoming events, and changes in the international trade status quo; let’s take a moment to explore ACE, and what its implementation will mean to those who make their career in global trade.

Modernizing Trade

A major goal of implementing ACE is to move towards modernizing the administrative side of the trade process by providing a secure and automated environment for commerce to operate within.  ACE is an ongoing project, but many of its capabilities have already been released to the public.  Importers can create an account for their business in order to explore the large number of reports and other functionalities that are available through this new system.

Another objective for the ACE system is to increase efficiency across the board.  It is common for a genuinely efficient system to need some kinks worked out, and for the user to grow accustomed to operating it.   As with any new system or interface, a learning curve will likely be involved, and perhaps even some growing pains.  Just like learning to type for the first time—it might be slower and require extra effort at first, but highly rewarding in the end.  Time will tell how the new system evolves, but there is no question that it's here to stay.

To learn more about ACE, check out CBP’s ACE at a glance fact sheet, and their deployed capabilities fact sheet.  These documents provide some excellent background on the system itself, and its available functions.

TRG Peak Readers:

Have you experienced the ACE interface in person?  Please comment below to share your experiences with the system and your thoughts on it.