Customs entries drafted from the commercial invoice, for your licensed broker to decide.

Today the arrival notice lands, the importer's documents come in by email, and an entry writer works through them: which items share an HTS number, what the invoice price includes, where each item was made and by whom, and what the packing list says about cartons and weights. From that the writer keys the entry summary into your ABI software, and a licensed broker checks it before it goes.

In the proof of concept, AI does the first pass. It drafts the lines the way your writers split them, one per HTS number, origin and manufacturer, and shows the invoice line, the packing list page and the transport document behind every field. Where the invoice leaves a question open, the draft asks it. Nothing is classified for you, transmitted or sent.

What the invoice owes the entry. CBP's list in 19 CFR 141.86 is longer than most supplier invoices. It asks for the buyer and seller, a description detailed enough to show the grade and the marks and numbers on the packages, quantities, the purchase price in the currency of purchase, every charge itemized by name and amount, including freight, insurance, commission and packing, any rebates, the country of origin, and assists such as dies, molds, tools or engineering work supplied for production and left out of the price. The invoice must be in English or carry an accurate translation, must say what each package holds, and must name a responsible employee of the exporter. Goods sold while in transit need both the original invoice and the resale invoice. The draft checks each invoice against that list and turns every gap into a question for your broker.

Value is built, not copied. Transaction value starts from the price actually paid or payable and adds what 19 CFR 152.103 names when the price leaves it out: packing costs, selling commissions, assists, royalties or license fees the buyer must pay as a condition of the sale, and resale proceeds that flow back to the seller. The 02/26 instructions for CBP Form 7501 then want the entered value in whole dollars on the HTS line, the charges beneath it marked with a C, meaning freight, insurance and other costs from alongside the carrier at the export port to alongside it at the first U.S. port, and a Y or N for whether buyer and seller are related. The draft shows the price it started from, each addition and each charge it took out, with the invoice line behind each. What is dutiable stays your broker's decision.

Origin and maker are separate questions. The instructions define the country of origin as where the article was made, produced or grown, or where it last underwent a substantial transformation, and say to report that country rather than the country of invoice or export; an entry with several origins says MULTI and codes each line. The manufacturer ID is built by rule: up to 15 characters, starting with the ISO code of the origin country (a province code for Canadian goods, never CA), then the first three letters of the first two words of the name, skipping words such as a, an, of and the and prefixes such as PT or OOO, then up to four digits of the largest number on the street line, then the first three letters of the city. On textile entries it names the actual manufacturer, not the trading company that invoiced, and two makers under one HTS number need two lines. Steel articles under the Section 232 measures add a country of melt and pour, and aluminum adds countries of smelt and cast, even when the Section 232 duty does not apply.

The HTS line carries more than a number. The form wants the full ten digits as the schedule prints them, such as 4012.11.4000, with any binding ruling reported beneath as RLNG and its number, and a separate line for an item the ruling doesn't cover. Sets classified under GRI 3(b) or 3(c) put an X before the number the set is classified under and a V before each article on its own line. Gross weight goes on every line in kilograms, estimated per line when the packing list gives only a total, without the container's weight. Net quantity follows the unit the HTS assigns, so a carton count may have to become dozens, pairs or kilograms, or two units at once, and an X in the unit column means no quantity at all. Where an antidumping or countervailing duty case applies, the case number follows the exporter's own case first, then the manufacturer's, then the all-others case ending in 000.

What your reviewer watches. Your reviewer, the licensed broker who knows these importers best, looks hardest at the calls a template gets wrong: a part classified two ways in past entries, an assist or royalty that never reached the value, an origin copied from the port of export, a textile MID built from the invoicing trader's address, and a line that should have split by maker. The draft lists every HTS candidate it weighed with the reason it leaned toward one, and never settles between two headings on its own. Under 19 CFR 111.39, a broker who knows a client made an error in a required document must tell the client promptly, advise on the fix and keep a record, so each invoice gap reaches your broker as a question, and your broker decides what goes back to the importer.

If your reviewer says yes, new shipments go through the same job for about 30 days, with the draft lines waiting when the importer's documents come in.

Each draft waits for a licensed broker, who classifies, values and signs every line and transmits the entry through your own ABI software. The AI never classifies goods, never decides value, origin or admissibility, never files or transmits an entry or an ISF, and never contacts an importer, a carrier or CBP.

Through the live month your reviewer goes on grading drafts against the success criteria agreed for the test.