Customs declaration handling has increased fivefold since Brexit

What started as a necessity to get ready for Brexit has evolved into a partnership between customs software provider AEB and Bongers Expeditie, setting the latter on a whole new growth path. In this article, process and application manager René Wijnants and general manager Ralph van de Grijp talk more about it.

Bongers Expeditie started using AEB customs solutions about eight years ago and even became AEB's very first Dutch customer. When the results of the Brexit referendum in Britain made it clear that a hard customs border was on the horizon, René and Ralph knew that the company needed to upgrade its customs software and processes internally to ensure trade could continue after January 2021.

At the time, the Dutch customs broker was handling about 8,000 to 10,000 declarations to third countries such as Switzerland and Norway. The shipments to Britain would cause that number to significantly increase.

Solution
"We wanted to offer our customers a reliable end-to-end solution to take care of the entire import and export process," said René. After weighing their options, he and Ralph quickly came to the realization that clearing goods through a UK clearing agent would work best, especially given the sensitive nature of most goods.

Therefore, AEB equipped Bongers with its Customs Broker Integration software, connecting them with an excellent customs clearance agent in the UK who handles import declarations and an integrated invoicing solution. Customs Broker Integration receives data from its customers via an API and submits the export declaration in the Netherlands using the AEB direct-filing solution. AEB's Customs Broker Integration then transfers the data to the UK customs clearance agent, which in turn submits the UK import declaration.

The entire process is handled through a single system. Since the exact same data sets are used for all transmissions, there is no risk of data being lost or accidentally changed, as can easily happen when copied manually.

The digital integration allows Bongers to track the progress of the clearance process, ensuring full transparency of where their goods are at any time and, of course, informing them as soon as the process is completed.

It took some time to make all the necessary parts of such a complex customs process fit together. Any system that relies heavily on automation can only be as good as the data fed into it. "We were able to significantly improve data quality by re-evaluating existing processes and adapting them to the new setup," explains Ralph.

Another useful improvement was the implementation of AEB's Logistics Cost Management, which allows Bongers to automatically populate data from Customs Brokers Integration (number of declarations, contents of shipments, etc.) into invoices, thereby avoiding a considerable amount of time-consuming manual work.

The result
By early 2022, all systems were up and running, allowing Bongers to submit some 50,000 to 55,000 declarations annually, depending on the season. That's five times more than before Brexit. Now, with excellent data quality and all processes streamlined for maximum speed and accuracy, Bongers processes large volumes of documents and data reliably and without any delays. With several new customs experts in the organization, they are in a strong position in the Dutch market and beyond. Meanwhile, the customer-supplier relationship with AEB has become a true partnership, putting Bongers in the unique position of acting as a broker and customer using broker services.

"With Brexit already in the rear-view mirror, we are now in a good position after all the adjustments we had to make," said René, "and the next steps will be to offer customs clearance services to AEB customers as a partner in the AEB Customs Broker Network."

Bongers mentions a British online plant and flower store that imports plants from the Netherlands into the United Kingdom as an example of export services being provided to an AEB customer. As a customer of AEB Customs Broker Integration, Bongers is able to offer its customers customs services in multiple countries. Another such case is the handling of export declarations from Germany to Norway for one of their main clients.