When it comes to compliance issues, global trade functions in a complex and tricky landscape. This involves dealing with complicated and layered international transport and trade compliance frameworks that involve several counterparties spread across multiple countries. Needless to say, several government agencies govern the distinct layers in detail. Failing to comply with even a single aspect or violating them might jeopardize the entire trade process, thereby incurring high risks and costs. Having said that, if you use the correct platform, it will be the perfect solution to all your compliance issues in the timber trade.
The Importance of Trade Compliance
Trade compliance ensures that regulatory and ethical practices are being followed all around the globe when it comes to trade operations. The trade agreements set strict standards for exports and imports of items, and the repercussions are also clearly defined by the governing institutions. Trade compliance includes all the processes and regulations promoting the general welfare, vitality, and safety of the global economy. A violation of trade compliance might result in the denial of export privileges, thereby costing the company more than the goods in the shipment.
How Can Timber Exchange Help Reduce Compliance Issues in Timber Trade
Documentation: This plays a vital role in the compliance of the timber trade. Incorrect documents can have two distinct consequences - the importer having to pay a substantial fine or the cargo getting blocked entirely. Timber Exchange solves this complicated problem for you. It allows you to keep track of and automatically drafts the documents required for the trade based on the key shipment and counterparty within the platform. All the documentation based on the port of loading and the port of delivery will be required to be correctly generated. In the instructions tab per specific deal, you can create and edit instructions for contract, insurance, and necessary customs documents with pre-filled data. You can generate a copy and upload it in the documents tab that can be further verified by the customer (importer) before you proceed to the next step.
Scheduling: On the Timber Exchange platform, you can add a deadline to accept the offer for a customer. The schedule followed by individual deals is partially tracked by the integrated APIs, where you can check the Estimated Time of Sailing (ETS) and Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) in real-time. You are also able to add deadlines for multiple events so that you can track them and follow the scheduled milestones in your home dashboard, thereby maintaining your smart supply calendar effectively.
Task: This tab includes auto-generated smart tasks related to the deal that can be shared with the counterparties and the deal participants (your colleagues, who are authorized to access, modify, and manage the task). You can receive any such task lists from the counterparties already present on the platform as well. The system shows the date when the task has been created and doesn’t delete any task, ensuring transparency. You get to track your task progress to see if everything is on-time, thereby making sure that you don’t have to pay unnecessary fines. It acts as your virtual trade assistant that always keeps you updated about what to do or what task you’ve missed out on.
Process: At the heart of compliance in the timber trade are the milestones to track. The Timber Exchange platform allows you to track the events and milestones and get deal-related process warnings throughout the supply chain for every deal. This gives you a clear picture of the things yet to be done or has been done, along with the timeframe. All the deal-specific processes are gathered inside the process tab so you get everything in one place. Since this is a centralized platform, all the updates made are automatically notified to your counterparties, thereby reducing the risk of errors and eliminating manual intervention at the same time. This way, if you are sick or on leave, the deal participants with access to the data can track the progress and meet deadlines as and when required.
Every step of the entire supply chain process at Timber Exchange goes through the step-by-step verification by both counterparties, without which you cannot progress further. This ultimately reduces errors and risks associated with the entire supply chain process. You can track active individual and historic warnings, location and customer-wise on the platform. This can also tell you which deal, staff member, and the customer has had the most warnings in the past (along with the deal number, the exact deviation that occurred, the estimated due date, and the date on which it has been generated).
In conclusion, trade compliance is one of the most important aspects to keep in mind when dealing with international trade and failing to maintain it can ultimately do more harm than good. Timber Exchange, as a supply chain automation platform, ensures that counterparties in a deal across the world follow the compliance process for a smooth trade without incurring extra costs.