A simple online solution to a complex process

The company: Bell Davies
The story: Consultancy makes life easier for import and export by developing a simple streamlined online solution to complex form filing

Alun Davies might justly be described as a gamekeeper turned poacher. Having begun his working life in the employ of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise department, he now runs Bell Davies, a consultancy that provides advice and guidance to companies navigating the choppy waters of international trade. In most ways Bell Davies is a traditional consultancy it sells the specialist skills of its staff and managers to its customers. But the introduction of an automated tool dubbed 'E-customs' is helping the company to win business outside pre-existing customer base.

Moving goods in and out of the UK is not a straightforward business - the amount you pay in duty often depends on how prepare your declaration to Customs. If you don't get the paperwork right then the Chancellor of the Exchequer stands to receive a nice little bonus at your expense. "A lot of people delegate the customs management to freight forwarders," says Davies. "The problem is that they won't necessarily have sufficient knowledge of the goods that are being shipped to ensure that there isn't any overpayment."

Working on the assumption that that the importer/exporter will have more relevant information about the goods in question than the freight forwarding company, Bell Davies' E-customs tool allows companies to enter details of shipments into a centralised customs management system. This data is then formatted in compliance with Customs and Excise rules and forwarded to the relevant authorities. While customs management software is not new, Davies claims that many companies have been put off managing their own documentation by the cost of buying and maintaining an expensive package. "The advantage of our system is that you don't need an in-house customs management facility," says Davies. "You access our system via the internet and we charge on a pay as you go basis "

While he won't be specific about the figure, Davies says that e-customs cost hundreds of thousands to develop. The payback is that E-customs is winning Bell Davies revenue from clients who would probably not have used the consultancy. "A significant number of multi nationals are using our CMS service that wouldn't have come to us before, " he says. To facilitate these bigger clients, who may be moving thousands of packages every week, Bell Davies can integrate e-customs with their computer systems to allow the relevant information to be flowed seamlessly into E-customs.

Davies says that while customs management is not currently the largest division of Bell Davies, has the potential to become so, particularly if the company fulfils its vision of providing similar services for non-UK tax regimes.