Proper knowledge of the commodity code is crucial for every customs declarant.

After all, this code forms the basis for the amounts of import duties, VAT, excise duties, countervailing duties, and anti-dumping.

A correct classification of goods might seem difficult, and yet it’s not.

Because fundamentally, there are no excuses for classifying goods incorrectly: the rules are clear and comprehensively defined with objective parameters.

So why do so many mistakes happen?

1. Maybe the description of the goods on the invoice was too concise and the declarant is not familiar with the goods
2. Maybe these are new materials that are not immediately recognizable on the list
3. Maybe the seller provided an incorrect commodity code

Artificial Intelligence can help!

A 100% automatic classification is impossible, but 90% of the work can be technologically supported.

The remaining 10% are difficult cases and results in a better use of skilled people.

Currently, AI can perform three checks that will greatly help you.

That is, provided you have the correct master data and a sample dataset with which you can train the system.

Check 1: sanity
-> detect nonexistent and/or incorrect codes

Check 2: inconsistency
-> find products with exactly the same description and a different code

Check 3: anomalies
-> compare product groups with commodity codes

And that’s not all: because the system is constantly learning, it will eventually be able to predict the commodity codes of new materials with a high degree of certainty.