What is the Importance of an ITN for Exporters?

What is the Importance of an ITN for Exporters?

If you are working in the export or import department, you must be familiar with the Automated Export System (AES) and the other acronyms like FTR, EEI, EIN and ACE. However, there is one more important term which is equally important but isn’t discussed much. It is the Internal Transaction Number or the ITN. In this article, we will be addressing ITN, what is it, and why it is important for international shipping.

The ITN and exporting

The U.S Foreign Trade Regulations or the FTR has some mandatory requirements to be fulfilled by their exporters. One of such requirements filing the Electronic Export Information or EEI through the AES for any of the merchandise exports. The consignment value must be $2500 or above by the Schedule B number.

The EEI can be filed directly into the AESDirect, where one can log into the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) portal and key in all the necessary export information. One can also use software programs to update all the necessary information swiftly. This will eliminate your chances of redundant data entry and help you save a lot of time while increasing your work accuracy. 

Once the information of EEI is submitted to the AESDirect on the ACE portal, the AES server is going to generate the ITN number, which also serves as your confirmation number. 

What is the importance of ITN?

The ITN plays a few critical yet unignorable roles in the entire export process, which are discussed as under:

  • It is the proof of your filing- The AES ITN is the proof that your customs broker has filed the EEI as the FTR has asked for it. The simple act of filing is not always enough. You need to also provide all the necessary information, the failure to which might draw in civil and criminal penalties. 
  • It will help you verify the filing accuracy through routed export transactions- The ITN number will allow you to verify if the information that was filled out on your behalf was accurate in the routed export transactions. If somebody else is filling the AES on your behalf, you can easily monitor each transaction to check if the documentation is done correctly at each stage.

If you are facing trouble with any of the above steps, refer to Clearit ITN number for Canada procedure to get all your doubts cleared.

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