EDI Customs Basics (SARS)
Every day, businesses generate and process a staggering volume of paper documents. The paper documents, ranging from purchase orders and invoices to Customs Declarations and Customs Cargo Reports provide the vital information flow which must precede, accompany or follow the physical goods in a commercial transaction. Any interruption in the physical or information flows halts the smooth operation of the supply chain, leading to significant cost overruns.
In recent years, companies have channeled vast amounts of resources into streamlining the physical production and distribution processes. Considerably less attention has been devoted to the benefits of improving the information flow within and between organisations. Management, faced with increasingly competitive markets, cannot afford to ignore any tool for improving their company’s ability to manage information effectively enabling them to make the right decisions at the right place and at the right time. EDI is much more than another technology; it is a way of managing information. In the decade of the 90’s and beyond, the accurate and prompt acquisition, manipulation and use of information needed to manage any organisation, will distinguish the highly competitive and profitable company from the rest.
Today, a majority of the data in commercial paper documents is generated from existing computer applications. These paper documents are printed and copied before the information they contain is finally communicated by mail or fax. The business partner in turn, re-keys all this information into another computer application for further processing. An increasing number of companies have found the above process extremely slow, costly and unreliable. The need for a faster, cheaper and more accurate solution for exchanging commercial data has become a significant priority for many companies and organisations.
EDI provides trading partners with an efficient business tool for the automatic transmission of commercial data from one computer application directly to another. Companies do not need to worry about different incompatible computer systems. Through the use of EDI message standards like UN/EDIFACT, data may be communicated quickly, efficiently and accurately irrespective of users’ internal hardware and software types.
To learn more about EDI and become a certified EDI Professional please visit our course schedule page.