Do you receive a monthly Automated Export System (AES) Compliance Report? If so, have you ever wondered why? The easy answer: All AES filers – or someone at their company – receive or should receive this report. The AES monthly report is a key factor to helping you avoid fines, penalties or shipping delays.  

The AES Compliance Report provides a monthly snapshot of how well your company is complying with Foreign Trade Regulations (FTR) when filing Electronic Export Information (EEI) to the AES. 

The report contains the issue date, contact information for the account owner, and the AES compliance rate for the previous three months. The AES compliance rate takes into account AES compliance alerts and unresolved fatal errors compared to the total number of shipments filed in the system.
 

The report also includes the number of shipments with informational, warning and verify messages – and the total number of unresolved fatal errors and compliance alerts for the filing month.
 

FTR Section 30.9(b) requires companies to correct any unresolved fatal errors before exporting goods. This is why this report and a follow-up AES Fatal Error Report highlights them.

Ultimately, the report serves as a check to show your AES compliance rate, total shipment count and help identify potential filing issues. In addition, it helps companies achieve and maintain full compliance, which is key for several reasons not the least of which is that failing to do so can lead to fines, penalties, and seizure or delay of cargo at the port. Heads up: Even a perfect compliance rate does not protect you against fines and penalties for future FTR violations.

Some best practices to help you/your company achieve and maintain full compliance:

• Make sure your company – and the appropriate person there – receive our reports. (Please contact us if you have never received it.)
• Minimize compliance alerts.
• Resolve outstanding fatal errors as soon as you receive them. Check out Appendix A of the Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirements (AESTIR) for guidance on how to resolve fatal errors
• Properly suppress or resubmit rejected shipments.

If you have any questions about your monthly AES Compliance Report or are not receiving it, contact the Census Bureau’s Trade Data Collection Branch at askaes@census.gov or 1-800-549-0595, option 1 for AES.