Throughout the course of business, you have faced the daunting tasks of organizing your imports and associated duties on them. Unfortunately, you have had to pay the duties on a daily basis, and you have dealt the implications of forgetting to make a payment on time. As technology has advanced, the US Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has taken advantage of an increasingly-connected society to make your job easier. Periodic Monthly Statements, or (PMS), offer many new benefits and increase the efficiency of your supply chain process.

What Are Periodic Monthly Statements?

Periodic Monthly Statements allow you to reap significant savings as you can compile all of your duty payments into one, simple payment per month. PMS is one of the latest features of the Automated Commercial Environment, or ACE).  Furthermore, the additional time between the first date of the statement period and the actual due date on the following month gives you extra time to make sure you have not forgotten to make any payments, which reduces your risk of incurring penalties, interest charges, and fines. Ultimately, PMS process enables you to avoid the transaction-by-transaction delays of making payment on duties.

What Are the Benefits of Periodic Monthly Statements?

Periodic Monthly Statements offers several benefits to supply chain processes for importers. In addition to consolidating all duty payments into one payment, you can adjust the amount of capital in your accounts to take care of your expected duties. Furthermore, PMS processing offers these same benefits to brokers and self-filers to pay their outstanding balances on duties in a timely manner. Also, it eliminates the need for multiple accounting tools and reporting to CBP. You may select a PMS for all national imports, or specific port imports. Furthermore, brokers may pay duties for importers, which allows importers to focus on the most important aspect of importing, pleasing their customers.

Now, modernity teaches society that nothing is free; however, CBP PMS processing does not charge interest on PMS processes, and importers can track the duties for the upcoming payment at any time.

Setup ACH Before Using PMS

Before accessing Periodic Monthly Statements tools within the ACE Secure Data Portal, importers, as well as brokers, must setup an ACH account with CBP. You will need to fill out an ACH Debit Application, which can be submitted to CBP by email, fax, or direct mail. In most cases, CBP will assign you an ACH payer unit number within 14 days. Afterwards, your importer, or yourself, can apply for PMS processing with the CBP. Although, you may request your supply chain manager to complete this portion of the application, if you prefer, you may apply for PMS processing on your own by following the instructions listed in the next section.

Self-Filer’s Guide to Generating PMS

You will need your ACE ID number and the IR number or filer code to access the ACE Secure Data Portal. If you do not have a Portal Account, you will be unable to access your Periodic Monthly Statements. After clicking on the “Accounts” page, you will need to click on the “Statements” hyperlink. If you want to access your import PMS as a self-filer, or broker, you will need to click on “Statement Designation.” You will need to process the entry summaries to access your routine daily statements, which lists all of the duties per date. If you need to remove, or change, any daily entry summaries, you must do so prior to running the report.

Once the predetermined date for processing has arrived, CBP will automatically send out the preliminary PMS to the respective filer. However, filers will need to review the statement by following these processes prior to authorizing the monthly ACH transfer. You will need to enter your payer unit number into the field, if and only if, you plan to pay with an ACH Debit transaction. After producing a final daily statement, which reflects an authorized amount, not an actual processed amount, the system will generate the PMS on the monthly date set by the Trade-Account Owner.

CSB sets a default date for monthly processing on the 11^th working day of each month; however, you may select any date from the 1^st through the 11^th working day of the month. If a filer does not have any charges from the daily final reports within the previous month, the system will not generate a PMS report instead of generating a report for a “zero” balance.  However, payments made with ACH Credit must be sent in the amount of $0.00 on the 15^th, which must be initiated by the filer’s financial institution. On the 15^th, CBP will enter the total amount due to payment via your ACH Debit process. After the payment has been processed, the final PMS report will be will be routed to the filer.

US Customs and Border Protection is making your responsibilities and processes for paying duties on imports much simpler with the Periodic Monthly Statements system. Since the processes for obtaining the PMS can be confounding, you may want to have your supply chain manager setup and review the process. Either way, you will see your supply chain processes become more efficient and save you time and money.

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