Today in my continuing series on the Shipping Solutions EZ Start screens, I describe the Free Trade Agreements screen.
The United States has Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Trade Promotion Agreements (TPAs) with different countries and regions of the world. These agreements provide for the elimination or reduction of duties paid on goods that qualify. Generally goods need to be produced in one of the FTA countries to qualify for preferential treatment. Some agreements have specific certificates of origin that are required to show that goods qualify, but most only require a statement verifying origin.
Shipping Solutions has created certificates of origin for many FTAs and TPAs based on the U.S. government’s suggested format and industry best practices.
The EZ Start-Free Trade Agreement screen is used for the following Certificates of Origin:
The EZ Start-Free Trade Agreement screen does not include all the fields that appear on the USMCA and other FTA/TPA certificates of origin. It only includes the information that is not on the Contacts and Product Detail EZ Start screens.
Since they are only good for one year, new blanket certificates of origin have to be created each year. You can save a lot of time creating your blanket certificates by using Shipping Solutions. Create one blanket certificate and then select an Importer from your Shipping Solutions database and print the certificate or create a pdf to be emailed to your customer. Then simply change the Importer and repeat the process.
You can change the format of the Blanket Dates by going to the Tools tab, Customize Documents screen, and selecting the certificate of origin that you want to change.
If you don’t enter a blanket date, the Commercial Invoice Number from the EZ Start-Invoices-Proforma/Commercial screen will appear on the USMCA documents. The reason is that if no blanket dates are entered, the document covers just one shipment, associated with the invoice number. If blanket dates are entered, then the document covers a period of time. In that case, the invoice number does not display because there would be multiple shipments during that period of time.
The Drop-Down Menus
There are two drop-down menus on the EZ Start-Free Trade Agreement screen. The USMCA Certified By drop-down designates who is certifying that the goods qualify for preferential treatment under the terms of the FTA. Your selection of the Importer, Exporter or Producer will appear near the bottom of the USMCA documents.
The Israeli Declaration By drop-down menu designates whether the Exporter or Producer is certifying that the goods qualify under the rules of the United States-Israel Free Trade Agreement. The declaration appears in the lower left corner of the Commercial Invoice for Israel.
Signature
If you have selected a signature on your Profile (see the Admin tab, Profile Settings screen), that signature will be populated in the Signature drop-down box. You can override that signature by selecting a different signature from the drop-down box. You may want to do this if you have a different person preparing your certificates of origin than prepares your other documents. To add signatures to Shipping Solutions see the Admin tab, Signatures and Logos screen.
This article was first published in March 2017 and has been updated to include current information, links and formatting.
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