For international supply chains, customs is a segment laden with complexities, as excessive documentation and the lack of visibility impedes stakeholders from making it a seamless affair.
KlearNow, a Silicon Valley-based, on-demand customs clearance platform, is helping companies navigate this complex portion of the supply chain by reducing the human element, eliminating errors and providing them unprecedented end-to-end visibility.
Automating the customs clearance process brings much-needed advances to the archaic world of customs. Sam Tyagi, founder and CEO, explained that importers can now rely on KlearNow as their one system of record. By being carrier-agnostic, they allow their customers to centralize all shipments through one portal.
“Our importers receive end-to-end visibility, including full transparency through the customs clearance process. Our intelligent document management software ingests all necessary documents from the importer’s end and converts them into digital assets on our platform,” said Tyagi.
These digital assets could be leveraged by multiple parties, including customs brokers and freight forwarders. Apart from providing importers with increased efficiency for day to day operations, it could be essential further down the road, for instance in case of an audit.
“KlearNow delivers significant value to their customers by providing substantial cost savings on customs clearance, an intra-port activity dashboard to eliminate demurrage and other charges, and a user-friendly web-based platform to drive labor efficiencies in their supply chain,” according to Tyagi.
KlearNow provides importers with tailor-made customs brokers based on their industry and also provides flexibility for importers to bring their own. Single window operations ensure that every segment within freight movement can be monitored effortlessly – from customer onboarding through the customs clearance process to final mile visibility.
Tyagi contended that this is critical in times of volatility or extraordinary circumstances like that of COVID-19 or Brexit, when supply and demand equations are upended. “Without tools that digitize and automate processes, customs brokers can only handle so many entries per day, regardless of an increase in volumes. This often leads them to prioritize certain importers – usually the higher paying ones in the market, which is rather unfortunate,” he said.
KlearNow is a certified ABI Software Vendor with U.S. customs and is in the process of getting certified with customs agencies in multiple other countries.
KlearNow’s customer base has been very responsive, with the startup getting positive feedback for its ability to phase out legacy working processes. “Today, every shipment generates an enormous amount of paperwork across multiple parties in the supply chain. As a 100% digital platform, KlearNow reduces that burden, which is helping make this world a more sustainable place.” said Tyagi.
