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Keep your customs offices up to date

Who this is for: the administrator of a State Party or a REC, and the Secretariat when it maintains offices on an administration's behalf.

What you will achieve: a register in which every office your officers stamp at exists, has the right type, and faces the right country.

Before you start: you need Organisation admin (or a Secretariat role). A REC maintains only the offices of the members it submits for. See Customs offices. Allow an hour for a first pass over a national network.

1. Export what is there​

  1. Open All areas and select Customs offices.
  2. Leave Scope on My administration and set Status to Including withdrawn.
  3. Select Export, choose Excel, and export. You now have your whole list to review offline with your colleagues.

See Import and export.

2. Find the offices ITS has seen but does not hold​

  1. Open Reports, then All reports.
  2. Open Unregistered stations. It lists office codes used on declarations that the register does not hold.
  3. Any code there that belongs to your country is an office to add.

3. Set the type of every border post​

Most offices came from the seed data as Not yet described. ITS never refuses a stamp at such an office, but it cannot tell a border post from an inland one either.

  1. On Customs offices, set Type to Any type and search for your border posts by name.
  2. For each, open the ⋮ menu, select Edit, set Office type to Border and choose the Neighbouring country it faces.
  3. Select Save changes.
  4. Set Inland only on dry ports and interior offices, and only when you are sure: an office recorded as Inland refuses every entry and exit stamp.

See Add or edit an office.

4. Add the offices that are missing​

  • One or two: select New office and fill it in.
  • Many: select Bulk Upload, download the Excel workbook template, fill in one row per office, and upload it. Rows ITS cannot accept are reported with a reason; the rest go in.

5. Withdraw what is wrong​

The seed data holds duplicates and places that are not customs offices (for example Tunisia's B6Q Bu Urqub and B8N Bou Argoub are the same place).

  1. Decide with your colleagues which code your officers actually use.
  2. On the other one, open the ⋮ menu and select Withdraw, then confirm.

A withdrawn office stops being offered on new declarations. Declarations already stamped there keep its name, and it can be reopened.

6. Check with your customs system​

Tell the team that runs your national customs system which codes you added, changed or withdrew. Your system sends those codes on every stamp, so the two lists must match.