Zollution

The Use Case

Zoll.Ution serves many mid- to big-sized trade and industry companies as a customs broker. In order to deliver customs services, the customs broker applies a European-leading customs software called AEB SE. An enormous amount of customs cases/documents are handed over in unstructured PDF format via e-mail by Zoll.Ution’s clients every day.

Challenges of Digital Transformation

Zoll.Ution receives most of its customs cases in unstructured PDF format and cannot use the data from the customs documents. Consequently, a customs specialist manually enters all the data into the customs software AEB to fill out a customs form.

The customs broker attempts to resolve this issue by obtaining structured data from their clients via API. However, many companies are reluctant to integrate their systems for various reasons. For example, some clients are accustomed to traditional processes, receive customs documents from other companies that are not fully digitalized, or see no benefit in investing in an integration that would allow a buyer to send data electronically to a customs broker.

Another recent and popular approach to digitizing data from unstructured PDF documents is called data extraction. Zoll.Ution tried to process data by applying various data extraction providers (AI-based and non-AI-based). However, the solutions are that much error-prone that they double the daily amount of work. As a result, customs specialists rejected using self-service data extraction solutions.

Besides, Zoll.Ution gets only data extracted from the invoices, but what is desired is to get an automatically created customs declaration sent to their customs software AEB. On top of that, invoice data is ambiguous and cannot be applied to a customs declaration. Before a customs declaration can be created out of extracted invoice data, the customs broker would need to include data from 5-10 additional customs documents per customs case, including properly maintained material and stakeholder master data.

The document classification, data normalization, validation and integration, the technical development of missing features, and training the AI to enhance a usual data extraction solution is an investment that not even large forwarders and customs brokers want to bear.

Solution: Digitalization in Customs

In order to overcome all the analyzed issues, Digicust developed the virtual customs robot Dexter IDP, a SaaS product integrated into a pre-customs software called Digital Customs. Dexter IDP automatically creates customs declarations end-to-end by applying intelligent document processing techniques, master data, and a large size of microservices to provide a highly accurate data delivery:

“Dexter IDP is an adaptive application without any user intervention that allows us to digitize relevant data from PDF customs documents and thus save considerable data entry effort. Furthermore, extensive data is available in less time, achieved through programmed automation that facilitates our day-to-day business and ensures higher accuracy by reducing data entry errors”, describes Christina Heigrodt, managing director of Zoll.Ution GmbH.

A customs specialist can quickly apply Dexter IDP since it is already integrated with AEB, and the application process is easy. Simply upload a customs case and get an automatically created customs declaration sent back to your desired customs software with the highest accuracy (98% +) from day one. All the customs specialist needs to do, is to control the provided customs declaration. If the customs software or Dexter IDP provides no warning messages, the customs specialist can review only little things and submit the customs declaration to the authorities without nearly any effort.

Solution Application of Dexter IDP and Customer Support

Dexter IDP is applied to create import, export, and transit declarations as well as to provide freshly made master data through invoice processing. The master data can be updated and maintained in the Digital Customs master data module, which interacts with Dexter IDP to enrich the data of customs documents. Digicust enjoys a very positive reputation in terms of customer support:

“The company offers great commitment and willingness to engage with and meet our needs. There were sometimes difficult to understand setbacks, but thanks to good communication, they could always be overcome and led to an overall improvement/stabilization of the processes.”

It is essential to mention that with Zoll.Ution, the startup Digicust has found its first product-market-fit. It took nearly a year to provide the desired solution Dexter IDP without any disturbance or inconveniences to new customers. Hence, finding product-market-fit for your use case is not needed anymore for your customs processes as Zoll.Ution covers most of them. You can get a trial account of Dexter IDP in a matter of minutes. Start creating customs declarations end-to-end today and use a fully automated solution at a breath-taking pace.

Future Application and Ways to Success

“Currently, the focus is put on stabilizing the ongoing processes. We aim to expand our customs services as soon as they function properly throughout departments and employees. Dexter IDP will be applied in every part where it optimizes, shortens, and/or stabilizes our processes”, says Mrs. Heigrodt.

Once Zoll.Ution has completed the stabilization of its processes, Digicust supports further digitalizing the customs broker’s work. In the near-by future, small customs cases that include invoices, delivery notes, and packing lists with only 1-3 pages shall be completely automated so that a customs specialist does not even need to control the customs declaration.

"In the course of advancing digitalization, companies are always on the lookout for solutions to increasingly automate ongoing processes. I believe Dexter IDP offers an interesting and future-proof application for the digitalization of data here that was hardly possible before.”

Besides, the managing director stated the following:

"All in all, a solid, reliable, and intuitive application/usability is of utmost relevance. Dexter IDP still needs a little development effort to make the product a self-runner in the application. The potential is there, the will as well and the direction is right.”