What we audit
Sixteen touchpoints. Not all of them are yours.
A customs transaction is usually drawn as one long chain. That hides the thing that matters: three different parties act across it, and what can be audited changes completely depending on which one is acting. This page states exactly what MyCustomsInfo® audits, what it collates, what it can only prepare you for, and what sits outside the platform entirely.
The distinction
Three kinds of act, not one chain.
Sequence tells you when something happens. Ownership tells you whether an audit is even possible. Every claim on this page follows from that.
Your own acts, evidenced by your own documents
Ordering, invoicing, packing, booking, lodging the entry, paying the duty. All of it leaves a paper trail you hold or can obtain, so all of it can be checked against source.
8 touchpoints · 3 audited · 4 collated · 1 outside the platform
A rule was applied to a set of facts
Classification, origin and value are decisions, not data entry. They can be checked against the rule and the documents. Reporting a disagreement is a different act from making the decision.
3 touchpoints · all 3 audited
The authority acting under its own powers
Targeting, examination, release, reopening a closed entry, enforcement. You cannot audit any of it. You can only be ready, and readiness has to already exist when it happens.
5 touchpoints · 1 audited · 3 prepared for · 1 outside the platform
Audits — every record checked against the documents behind it, with the finding reported and the source attached.
Collates — the document is ingested, matched and measured for completeness; it is an input to a finding rather than the subject of one.
Prepares you — nothing here can be audited by anyone but the authority; the platform produces the record you would be asked to hand over.
Outside the platform — stated plainly rather than left to be assumed.
The map
Sixteen touchpoints, and where we sit on each.
| Touchpoint | What happens | Our position |
|---|---|---|
| What you do | ||
| 01 | Commercial terms are set | Outside the platform |
| 02 | Supplier invoice is issued | Collates |
| 03 | Goods are packed and consolidated | Collates |
| 04 | Movement is booked | Collates |
| 05 | Data reaches the declarant | Audits |
| 06 | Transport document is raised | Collates |
| 07 | The entry is lodged | Audits — after the event, never by us |
| 08 | Duty and tax are paid | Audits |
| What is judged | ||
| 09 | The goods are classified | Audits the code submitted — does not determine one |
| 10 | Origin is claimed | Audits |
| 11 | Customs value is built | Audits |
| What is done to you | ||
| 12 | Your entries are targeted | Prepares you |
| 13 | A consignment is examined | Prepares you |
| 14 | Goods are released | Prepares you |
| 15 | Closed entries are reopened | Audits — this is the whole product |
| 16 | Enforcement action is taken | Outside the platform |
Seven audited. Four collated. Three you are prepared for. Two outside the platform. Nobody covers sixteen of sixteen, and any platform that says it does has not separated the three kinds of act.
The seven we audit
What each one actually means.
Catch it before it becomes a legal statement
Whatever reaches the declarant is what gets filed, and an error introduced here propagates through everything after it. You authorise the customs authority or your declaration software provider to release your declaration data to us in an agreed format.
Your data only, sent on your instruction. We hold no credentials of yours.
Audited after the event, never filed by us
The filed entry is the legal statement, binding the moment it is lodged. In every regime your authorised declarant or representative files it. We sit on the other side of that line, which is what makes the audit independent.
The calculation is checked, not assumed
The amount must follow from the code, the value, the origin and the measures in force on the date of acceptance. Rates are applied per entry against the live tariff for that date, never from a stored rate.
US surcharges are audited on US entries only and never appear in a sterling or euro view.
We audit the code you submitted
Determining a classification and auditing one are two different acts, and only the second is ours. Where a submitted code does not hold against the goods description and the documents, the non-compliance is identified and time-stamped for you to act on.
The platform will not suggest a commodity code. That is a separate service and not one we sell.
Checked against the evidence and the rate available
Declared origin must agree with the supporting evidence, and a preferential claim must be supported by a valid proof held at the time. Where a preferential rate existed and was not claimed, we report it.
We report that a rate could have been used. Whether the goods qualified under the rules of origin is your determination, not ours.
Element by element, against the documents
Freight and insurance added to a price already inclusive of them is overpayment. Omitted where they belong, it is an unprovisioned liability. The declared delivery terms are reconciled against both the invoice and the transport document.
The reason the other six matter
An authority reopens closed entries, often years later, and asks you to evidence what you declared and why. The record-keeping obligation is yours and your representative's. Every declaration, every element, against the documents behind it, with the source attached to each finding and the date you acted recorded against it — assembled continuously, so it already exists when the request arrives.
How it runs
One loop, on a cadence.
Deliberately unglamorous, and the same in every regime we cover.
Ingest on your authorisation
You authorise the release of your declaration data in an agreed format — CSV, Excel or API. It is sent on your instruction and it is your data only.
Collate without standardising
Documents arrive three ways: a mailbox dedicated to your tenancy, portal upload, or API and SFTP. Any format, any supplier layout. You never normalise a document before sending it.
Match, element by element
Every declaration, not a sample. Completeness is measured alongside accuracy, so a document that never arrived is a finding rather than a silent gap.
Validate with a person
Findings are validated by customs professionals we employ before they reach you. A system raises the discrepancy; a person confirms it is real.
Report with the source attached
Every finding carries the source document, the basis stated, and a time stamp. We report the disagreement. We do not decide it, and we do not amend the entry.
Hand back for corrective action
You, or your appointed representative, take the action. Your decision and its date are recorded against the finding — which is the part an authority actually asks to see.
Run it again
A one-off review finds what is there today. A standing audit changes what gets filed tomorrow.
Readiness
The four you cannot audit, and what we do instead.
Targeting, examination, release and enforcement belong to the authority. Preparation is the only lever, and it is a by-product of running the other touchpoints rather than a separate exercise.
What you present to a system you cannot see
You will not be shown the risk rules and you will not be told why you were selected. What you can control is being the trader whose file holds together when it is pulled: full population coverage with no sampling gap, every entry reconciled, findings already closed out with dates against them.
The document pack, assembled before it is asked for
Document completeness — the electronic submission against the supporting documents — is a standing report. You find out which entries are missing a document while you can still request it, rather than during an examination.
A record of where the time actually went
We measure declaration elapsed time per entry rather than scoring your brokers. Responsibility for a declaration is shared between you, the party that lodged it and the regime itself, so we measure the declaration.
Evidence that already existed when the demand arrived
Penalties and demands are exercises of legal power, not software functions. We do not represent you and we do not file anything on your behalf. What the audit leaves behind is what was declared, what was found, and when it was acted on.
Readiness at these four cannot be bought after the authority acts. That is the argument against treating a customs audit as a periodic project.
Independence
Why we can say all of this plainly.
An auditor that builds the thing it checks is marking its own homework. We are structurally unable to, and here is exactly what that means.
File declarations
In any regime. Your authorised declarant or representative files. We audit what was filed, after the event.
Determine classifications
We audit the classification that was submitted. Deciding one is a different act and not one we perform.
Create the entries we check
No declaration-building product sits behind this platform. Nothing we audit originated with us.
Own a carrier, forwarder or brokerage
No freight interest, no clearance revenue, nothing downstream that a finding could embarrass.
Start with three months of your own declarations.
A complimentary compliance review, run on your data, in your regime. You see the findings and the documents behind them before any commitment. If there is nothing to find, we will tell you that too.
+44-151-808-0103 · portal.mycustomsinfo.com