Activating Legal Regulations for Customs Management

You can get an overview of the legal regulations delivered for both application areas of Customs Management in the general settings in Customizing for SAP GTS (menu path SAP Global Trade Services, edition for SAP HANA → General Settings → Legal Regulations → Define Legal Regulation).

Basically, due to technical reasons, Customs Management consists of two application areas: customs processing and transit/presentation. For the EU, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom customs processing includes all customs procedures except the transit procedure. If your company wants to use SAP GTS for both the transit procedure and other customs procedures, you have to implement both application areas.

For the United States, the transit/presentation application area supports the transfer of goods from the point of unloading in the territory of the port of entry, to a foreign-trade zone inside or outside this territory, as well as goods movements between two foreign-trade zones (transportation under permit to transfer and transportation in-bond).

For customs processing in Australia, China, some European countries, New Zealand, and the United States, delivery Customizing provides legal regulations that you should use. In SAP GTS, these legal regulations represent all customs-related legislation and provisions that apply in the respective country.

In the case of the EU Member States, for example, the individual legal regulations for customs processing cover both EU customs law, that is, the Union Customs Code (UCC) and its implementing provisions, as well as national law, administrative rules, and technical specifications for electronic communication with the customs authorities. The legal regulations delivered for opening and/or discharging a transit procedure in some of the Member States also include the Convention on a Common Transit Procedure with the EFTA States, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

A two-step activation always follows the definition of a new legal regulation or, in the case of Customs Management, the decision to use one of the legal regulations provided in the delivery Customizing.

1. General activation of the legal regulation

   (Where do the legal provisions that are mapped using the legal regulation apply?)

2. Specific activation of the legal regulation for an application area

   (Which application area uses the legal regulation – to what extent, if applicable?)

You have to activate legal regulations for the two application areas of Customs Management at country level. Country groups that are available in the application areas of Compliance Management and in Preference Management are not used in Customs Management.

You activate a legal regulation generally in the cross-application area settings in Customizing for SAP GTS (menu path: SAP Global Trade Services, edition for SAP HANA → General Settings → Legal Regulations → Activate Legal Regulations at Country/Country Group Level). You can find the views for the specific activation of legal regulations in Customizing for the two application areas.

Menu paths:

• SAP Global Trade Services, edition for SAP HANA → Customs Management → Activate Legal Regulation for Transit/Presentation and Excise Duty
• SAP Global Trade Services, edition for SAP HANA → Customs Management → Activate Legal Regulation for Customs Processing and Pre-Declaration

After replicating a feeder system document, SAP GTS attempts to determine a legal regulation for the relevant application area. In Customs Management, the company code of the feeder system document is always decisive for this determination. SAP GTS takes the country of destination of the import, or the country of departure of the export, from the address of the business partner in the "Foreign Trade Organization" role that is assigned to the company code in the mapping of the organizational structures.

The delivery Customizing for SAP GTS contains a determination procedure for each of the application areas (menu path: SAP Global Trade Services, edition for SAP HANA → General Settings → Legal Regulations → Define Determination Procedure for Active Legal Regulations). The determination procedures are already assigned to the application areas for which they are intended. You can find this assignment in Customizing for Customs Management by choosing SAP Global Trade Services, edition for SAP HANA → Customs Management → Assign Determination Procedure for Active Legal Regulations:

• Customs Processing: Determination procedure LECUS

• Transit Procedure/Excise Duty Monitoring: Determination procedure LETRS

Unlike in Compliance Management and Preference Management, determination of legal regulations in Customs Management is only possible at the level of the country of departure or country of destination. The two determination procedures in Customs Management therefore only contain the determination strategy ALRG01 (Determine Legal Regulation at Country Level).