About
The shipping Manifest is one of the key documents in the shipping process and is generally used by many players across the
community. As the new central hub, the PCS will receive manifests from Shipping Agents in various formats, validate with Customs
and then deliver them to other important stakeholders. For those players who cannot send manifests in any of the traditional
industry file formats, the PCS provides a standard online user interface which enables fast and convenient creation as well as
submission of manifests and related documentation. It will also cater to the amendment of manifests and the management of payments,
where deemed necessary by Customs.
As a single window for manifest submission and dissemination, the PCS will substantially reduce paper-pushing efforts across the
community. This is because industry players have traditionally received and re-created a lot of this data for their own purposes,
often introducing errors and subsequent delays in the goods movement process.
Where necessary, the PCS will share with the relevant stakeholders and authorities based on their role:
- Shipping Agents - Register manifests and amendments
- Customs - Receive manifests for valuation and risk management
- Port Terminals – Receive portions of the manifest for billing purposes
- Customs Brokers – Receive portions of the manifest in relation to designated activities
- OGAs – Receive portions of the manifest in relation to licensing, inspection and risk management activities
Benefits
Shipping Agents
Traditionally, large shipping Agents with greater resources would prepare manifests via their own custom-built applications. Changes and upgrades over time were expensive and sometimes impossible. These pain points were further propagated whenever starting up Operations in a new country or port. Smaller agents, on the other hand, would use basic but inadequate software tools such as Microsoft Excel. Unfortunately, neither approach was suitable nor sustainable for compatibility and financial reasons. Additionally, in sharing these documents they would have to subsequently e-mail and/or send physical copies to different stakeholders, located in geographically diverse areas. Oftentimes, errors and changes would result in painstaking attempts to fix or amend and re-submit the documentation. This proved inefficient and uneconomical for business.
The PCS is adaptable and flexible in accepting a wide array of file and transmission types, easing this burden. In that regard, it is designed to simplify the manifest creation and dissemination process. Along with smaller agents, those companies with pre-existing systems may opt to utilize their native formats and may even choose to utilize the PCS' application instead of their own. The PCS will automatically ensure accuracy while handling dissemination activities in a timely manner. Subsequent amendments can be handled in the PCS and can be immediately paid for via our online payment platform. For those agents performing frequent repeat transactions, the PCS will allow them to duplicate pre-existing manifests easily, substantially cutting the time and effort.
In ongoing business, NVOCC's would need to await the main agent's submission of the main manifest before they could prepare and submit their manifests to Customs. This resulted in issues with Customs, sometimes causing them to be breached if they submitted after the deadline.
The PCS allows NVOCC's to prepare their manifests and save in draft mode well ahead of the main agents’ submission of their own manifest. This allows them to complete the mass of their own work ahead of the stipulated deadline. Once the main manifest has been accepted by Customs, NVOCC’s can easily submit their manifests as well.
Customs
Given that Shipping agents across the industry utilized different methods of creating and submitting manifests, the lack of uniformity resulted in significant administrative and technical efforts for Customs, leaving them to deal with numerous inconsistencies in translating electronic files and handling manual prints. In dealing with the resulting issues, personnel were dedicated to supporting manifest submissions in their Asycuda and eManifest systems.
Given that the PCS will centralize and optimize manifest submissions across the port community, Customs will see the benefits of on-time submissions across its valuation and risk management teams who can now utilize the manifest information in a more proactive manner.
