Shipping Solutions Newsletter

Creating an Export Management System for Your Company

Attend an export compliance seminar and you'll almost certainly be shown a copy of this booklet published by the U.S. Office of Export Enforcement or given a link to the online version on its website. Look inside and you'll see company after company that has violated U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and paid substantial criminal and civil fines, been denied export privileges, and/or even seen top company officials sent to jail.

These companies either didn't determine whether or not their products required an export license before they shipped them out, or they didn't screen their customers to see if they appeared on any of the various government restricted party lists.

Making sure your company's name doesn't appear in this publication starts by educating your key export employees about their responsiblities as exporters. There are several different seminars, publications and consultants who can help train your export staff. However, to truly ensure compliance with the EAR, you need to make export compliance an important part of your company's standard operating procedures.

The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) recommends creating a written Export Management System (EMS) at your company to ensure that every export is treated consistently and in compliance with U.S. export laws and regulations. As BIS officials like to say, "It is a map to consistent export enforcement."

While an EMS is not mandatory, having one in place can definitely help mitigate any penalties if your company ever does accidently violate an export rule.

The following seven steps can help you create and implement an EMS at your company:

Your export compliance plan must start at the top. If the top officials at your company don't make it a priority, no one else will either.
Create a flow chart tracking the export order processing and fulfillment process at your company and include compliance resonsibilities.
From your flow chart, identify key people in the export process, determine their exact responsibilities, train them, and make sure they have the authority to successful execute those responsibilities.
Require your key people to document the work they do on every export and make sure your company retains these records.
Provide continuing education for all employees involved in the export process. Export regulations and personnel can and do change regularly.
Conduct regular reviews of your export process. Have someone outside the flow chart—an employee from another area, an outside consultant, or an official from the Office of Export Enforcement—review your written procedures, identify changes that may need to be made, and and determine whether or not your company is following them.
Establish notification procedures if questions or problems arise. Identify a key official at your company who employees should contact about the export process. Create procedures for self-reporting export violations to BIS if they ever do occur. (Self-reporting violations may not eliminate penalties for those violations, but they may be substantially less than penalties assessed if the Office of Export Enforcement discovers your violations itself.)

BIS publishes guidelines for creating an EMS at its website along with a sample EMS module that you can download and use as a template for your company's own EMS program. If you don't already have a written plan in place, now is the time to create one.

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Thousands of successful exporters are using Shipping Solutions to complete their export documents faster, easier and less expensively than ever before. Why aren't you?

If you're too busy trying to complete your export documents by hand to spend some time reviewing the Shipping Solutions Professional export documentation and compliance software yourself, let us do it for you! Sign up for one of our free online demos and let us give you a one-hour overview of the software.

We'll take you step-by-step through the process of completing your export forms, filing your SEDs electronically through AES, and checking your exports against the various government restricted parties lists and export regulations to make sure your shipments are in compliance, and you—and your company—stay out of trouble.

These free online demos are available on Tuesday's at 1:00 Central Time. All you need is an Internet connection to watch the demo and a phone to listen in and ask questions about the software. It's the perfect opportunity to get your first view of Shipping Solutions or to convince your coworkers and your boss that Shipping Solutions is the perfect solution for your company.

See why Shipping Solutions is America's #1 export software. Sign up for the free online demo today!

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