How to Monitor Export Documentation and Compliance across Dozens of Locations

Managing teams of people across many different locations can be challenging without the right tools. For Quad, a global provider of marketing solutions, management services and commercial printing, when it comes to export compliance and documentation, Shipping Solutions Export Compliance Software is one of the tools that helps ensure they’re following export regulations. 

Quad has more than 50 printing facilities throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America and Europe, and they print some of the most recognizable magazines (Time, Sports Illustrated and People). So it takes a big team of people working in logistics to manage exports and compliance out of so many plants. 

For Sandy Schultz, Quad’s freight operations manager, Shipping Solutions has been a way for her to monitor compliance and ensure export regulations are followed while overseeing plants all across the U.S. “I have visualization of every shipment that goes out of every location,” she explained. Sandy said that she has about 272 team members using Shipping Solutions, mostly in the U.S., but also at a plant in Mexico. 

Before Quad started using Shipping Solutions, export documentation was done using templates, but that made it hard to monitor what was happening with shipments going out of so many different locations. With Shipping Solutions, everyone can work within the same system. 

How Shipping Solutions Saves Time

Shipping Solutions simplifies the export documentation process and saves time. Sandy creates and starts export document templates in Shipping Solutions, so her team members have a head start when preparing documentation for a shipment.

She used the example of print customer Time, Inc. “They usually have anywhere from 30 to 40 shipments a week going into Canada,” she explained. “I can create a template in the system, and list their customs broker, and have everything completed” ahead of time. Then all her team members need to do is update quantities and unit value for the shipment. Everything else is preset. “It literally takes them less than two minutes to create their customs documents,” Sandy said.

With Shipping Solutions you enter your basic information once, and the software automatically formats and places it in the right spot on the right forms. No more typing the same information over and over again. This means fewer typos and inconsistencies, which can be a problem if many different people complete your export documents. Simple errors can delay shipments and, ultimately, payment. 

Some of the documents Sandy’s team uses most include: 

• Commercial Invoice
• Proforma Invoice
• U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Certificate of Origin for shipments to Mexico and Canada
• Air Waybill
• Ocean Bill of Lading
• Shipper Letter of Instruction

Because Shipping Solutions is easy to use, it works well for companies with users spread out geographically. “The system is very easy to use,” Sandy said. “Our employees love using it. It makes life a lot easier for a lot of us.” And with the Shipping Solutions Annual Maintenance Program (AMP), free technical support is just a phone call away. 

The Export Compliance Module 

That’s the documentation piece of how Quad uses Shipping Solutions. For compliance, there are two parts to the software’s Export Compliance Module that Quad uses:

• Document Determination—Understand what documents you need to create and include with your shipment based on Customs regulations in the U.S. and the destination country.
• Restricted Party Screening—The U.S. government publishes dozens of lists of individuals and organizations with whom you can’t do business. A click of a button checks all the parties in your export transactions against all these lists and tells you if there are any matches.

“Anybody that we ship internationally to has to go through the restricted party screening,” explained Sandy.  

Free Demo

Maybe you work for a larger company like Quad, or maybe you are your company’s only employee working in logistics. Either way, Shipping Solutions makes completing your export documents faster and more accurate. If you’d like to give it a try, sign up for a free demo.