15 Dec The Future of Customs Documentation: How Shippers Can Break Free from 44% Manual Workflows
For shippers managing global movements, customs documentation still feels like an obstacle course—slow, repetitive, and surprisingly manual. Today, nearly 44% of all customs documentation activities are still handled manually, despite the rise of advanced ERP and supply chain systems.
A recent survey of 313 companies reveals that reliance on manual workflows is a key driver of delays and compliance failures—issues that can have serious repercussions for businesses striving to stay competitive and efficient.
Why Shippers Feel the Pain First
Shippers feel the pain first because they sit at the centre of documentation flow—coordinating suppliers, carriers, brokers, and internal teams. When documents fail, cargo stalls, costs rise, and service levels collapse. A Kale Logistics study shows this is a global issue across the USA, India, UAE, and Malaysia, with common challenges: insecure document exchange, multiple versions, fast-changing regulations, and inconsistent formats. Large enterprises juggle multiple ERPs, while SMEs depend on spreadsheets and emails, making misalignment inevitable.
Why Does Manual Documentation Still Reign?
So, why is manual documentation still so prevalent? Three key factors play a role in this ongoing issue:
- Fragmented Systems: Many companies operate with a patchwork of different ERPs like SAP, Oracle, and Infor, making it nearly impossible to adopt a unified approach.
- Complex Regulations: The intricate nature of regulations means each type of document has its unique structure, which calls for human intervention more often than we’d like to admit.
- Lack of Real-Time Visibility: Without real-time tracking, teams find themselves chasing document versions through endless email chains, significantly increasing the chance of errors.
What Automation Really Means for Shippers
Automation in customs documentation is more than an efficiency boost—it directly strengthens margins, customer experience, and supply-chain agility. Shippers adopting automated EXIM workflows achieve faster approvals, fewer TAT breaches, reduced compliance errors, cleaner audit trails, and better coordination with forwarders, carriers, and brokers. Modern Logistics & Customs Control Towers (LCCT) can transform operations from nearly half-manual to almost fully automated within 90 days, delivering predictable clearance and fewer surprises. With global trade rapidly digitising, manual-heavy shippers risk falling behind. The question now is: How much stronger would your supply chain be if documentation delays vanished?
Read more on Kale’s Logistics & Customs Control Towers