How do we automatically control purchase behaviour, without onerous administration?

Client Background

The client, being one of the world’s largest bearing manufacturers, imports products from countries across the world and has previously worked with Wilcompute to design the Duty Recovery System.

As required by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), the client must pay duty on imported goods at the time of import, however, many of the products were eligible for duty remission. This resulted in reimbursement from the CBSA. Implementation of the Duty Recovery System required the client to establish a rigorous system of purchase order creation and tracking in order to be able to differentiate between duty-free goods and the many imported goods not destined for re-sale.

Previously, purchases made by employees, departments, or management were delivered to their individual addresses, with no central record of what was imported into the country, or for how much.

Key Challenges

A robust Purchase Order System was required in order to begin participating in the CBSA Self-Assessment Program: a program introduced in 2008 designed to simplify many of the import border requirements so that low-risk shipments could be processed more efficiently at the border, saving time and money.

A major impediment to the creation of the Purchase Order System was the aggregation of all the currently used processes in place at the client site. Purchasing activity was dispersed throughout the organization, and no one person or department was responsible for this activity.

Potential financial audits meant the onerous task of locating physical documents in storage. There was also no ability for the client to produce a total dollar value on their extraneous purchase spending; potentially complicating the audit process.