Electronic Document Management System
for Customs Declarations in P&G Company

The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational company, one of the leaders on the global consumer goods market. One of the units of P&G has 6 legal entities in 4 regions including 3 factories.

In 2013, the company faced an increase in the number of the customs documents. The company worked at 12 customs, had contracts with 13 customs representatives who worked in three systems. Employees processed over 2000 customs declarations per month.

By this time, the company completed the first stage of the implementation of Axirum system. It resulted in the automation of the contract approval process. The goal of the second stage was to switch to an electronic legally valid document exchange of customs declarations.

Solutions

During the project, the following features were implemented:

1. Receive and upload customs declarations in XML with signatures from the customs operators systems.

To solve this problem, we developed a special automatic capture service. The service combines the XML document flows from three customs declaration systems. The system automatically verifies integrity of the XML containers, signatures, the validity of certificates used to sign the documents, and other parameters.

The tool uploads XML files into the customs declaration databook that automatically creates and fills document cards. The XML file and its PDF forms can be attached to this document card.

2. Process customs declarations.

In Axirum system, the project team linked the pre-configured databooks with specially created ones:

• The Goods Declarations databook contains all information from customs declarations that P&G employees may need. Employees can filter the data and export it to Excel files.
• The Customs databook contains information about customs stations, their codes, and vendor numbers from the internal systems (counterparty's SAP number).
• The Countries databook contains information about goods manufacturer states.
• The Currency databook is used to select the currency of a contract under which the goods are imported or exported.

3. Automate the preparation and submission of customs declarations to tax authorities.

When the project was implemented, the tax service did not accept customs declarations submitted in XML. That is why it was decided to create an additional feature, which allows employees to automatically export PDF documents according to a predefined list.

We developed a special script that allows employees to move customs declarations in bulk to a specific folder on the computer. If a document from the list is missing, the user receives a notification.

4. Store customs declarations in a single place.

By creating a customs declaration databook, the company managed to put together an electronic archive. Each document card contains XML and PDF versions of customs declarations, which means that this databook became a single storage and systematization place for this kind of documents.

5. Transfer information to the P&G systems.

To transfer information to the P&G systems, some additional tables were created in the SQL database. The tables contain values necessary for customs declaration accounting transactions, and ensure safe and effective connection between the company's developments and Axirum database.

Solution used