Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. (EXPD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. I think it's just about the time we get started now. So hello, everyone. My name is Justin, and I will be the host for today's webinar, which is the first part of our Expeditors CARM series with a focus of onboarding. Thank you all for joining us today. And now I'll cover a few ground rules. [Operator Instructions] Everyone is automatically on mute and your cameras are off. [Operator Instructions] Please stick around to the end, not only for any leftover questions. We will also have a QR code that you're able to scan to sign up for our communications as well directly after the webinar, a survey from Zoom should open up in a new tab for you to give us your feedback. So I would -- we would appreciate it if you were to fill that out. Later next week, everyone that registered for this webinar, we'll receive a follow-up e-mail that includes a copy of the slides used today, but please note that there will be no recording available. With that, I will hand it off to one of our speakers for today, Steve Bunda.

All right. Thank you so much, Justin, and everyone, good afternoon, and thank you for taking time today and attending our ongoing webinar series and today's topic is CBSA, Canada Board of Services Agency, key initiative, which is known as CARM, CBA Assessment and Revenue Management Program. My name is Steve Bunda, and I'm responsible for the business development here at Expeditors Canada. And today, we'll take you through the necessary steps in registering on the CCP, the CARM client portal. We've been working with many importers for months on the program and have identified specific areas of concern during the registration process. And by addressing these concerns, we're hoping to make this process less of a challenge. With me today are my colleagues, Bibi Saiphoo, Regional Customs Support Manager; and David Mitchell, Customer Technology Solutions Manager. Together we'll help navigate through this process. And also, of course, Justin Pavao, our Sales Operation Coordinator, will be assisting in the presentation. So I believe we have our #1 poll question, Justin? All right. So Poll #1, have you registered on the CCP CARM client portal? Yes or no. [Voting]

All right. And that's the -- is that the final tally there, Justin? 44%, yes, and 56%, no. Okay. Interesting. So almost 50-50. Well, hopefully, through this presentation, we will make it a little simpler for everybody. I was kind of actually looking at the numbers, and I said, well, I think we're probably going to see a 50-50 mix here. And that's kind of where we are. But again, through the presentation, hopefully, we'll have a few areas rectified and make it a little easier for the registration process. So basically, as an overview, what is CARM and how will it impact importers? And today, the accounting for commercial imports and assessing the applicable duties and taxes requires extensive administration by both importers and Canadian Customs. And the existing processes and systems in place to support these activities are antiquated and requiring substantial paperwork and rely on IT systems that are more than 30 years old. And this approach itself is inefficient and costly for both customs and importers. And in an effort to modernize the import process for the assessment of the duties and taxes, Canadian customs has established their CARM initiative. And CARM will redesign import information requirements, processes and systems to be simpler, easier for trade chain partners and government alike to administer. CARM will also enhance the focus on trade by facilitating compliance, enhancing data analytics and optimizing business processes. The program itself will also create efficiencies and address the challenges that the trade community is facing today, including creating the CARM Client Portal, CCP, to automate and streamline the import accounting process for importers and customs brokers and also the introduction of new commercial accounting declaration, known as the CAD to enable the electronic submission of commercial accounting information essentially replacing the customs B3 document and B2 adjustment form. But please note, CARM will not impact the present day release options with CBSA only addressing the payment of the duties and taxes. And the program, of course, is mandatory and mandatory for all importers into Canada, be that Canadian resident importers or nonresident importers. So it is critical for importers to register. So essentially, if you don't register by October of this year, you will not be allowed to import. It's as simple as that. Our friends and colleagues south of the border are familiar with CBPs ACE portal. And Canada's CARM program does have similarities to the ACE portal. Actually, some have referred CARM as Canada's version of ACE. But overall, CBSA's goal here is to build a stronger relationship with importers and the Department of Canadian Customs. So at this time, I will call on my colleague, Dave Mitchell, to take the next slide. Dave?

Thanks, Steve. So first, what we're going to do is kind of walk you through how to get to the current client portal and how to log in and what information you're going to need to do that. So on the CARM client portal, what you want to do is go to Google or whatever search engine you can and type in CBSA CARM client portal log-in. That will bring you to a link that hopefully takes you to this page. In the left-hand side of the page, you'll see log in to the CARM client portal. And once you click on that, it will ask you to create a sign in for the portal itself. So there are 2 options to sign in. One is through a sign-in partner. And if you were to click on, continue to sign in partner, that will take you to a bunch of icons for things like financial institutions. So myself using TD Bank, I click on TD Bank, I put in my user name, my password, and that will take me in and allow me to register on the client portal through that sign-in partner. The other one is a GCKey, being Government of Canada Key, that allows you to log in, create a user name and password, that will allow you to not only hit the CARM client portal, but any other programs that CBSA has within their portals. So that can be used across multiple programs with Customs.

Sorry, Dave. Can I jump in here?

Yes, please.

Just a quick one. Between the GCKey and the sign in partner, I can tell you through experience of the importers that have had inquiries on this, the majority by far have chosen the GCKey over the sign-in partners portal. And it's a good point. If you're registered on another government department, be it CRA or as an example, CERS, Canadian Export Reporting System, that GCKey that you applied for there will work on the CARM portal, just as an FYI.

Absolutely. Thanks, Steve. So once you have these details and you've created your sign in, you're going to have to go in and start to create your personal profile within the CARM client portal, Justin, if you will. So from that perspective, what you need to do is go in, create your personal profile, so information about yourself, link your user account to a business account, by that, things that you're going to need to key in are your 15-digit business number and other business details, including the name and address. It's important to note that from a legal entity standpoint, you must have the name and address identical to how it is registered with the CBSA and the CRA. Once you've registered your business in the CCP, if you are the first person within your organization to log in and register the business with your log-in, you will be considered what is called the business account manager or BAM, for short, basically having access to the entire program within the CCP. And from that, as I said, you're going to need to link your 15-digit business number or numbers underneath that log in, legal entity and physical address. And then you're going to have to answer 3 affinity questions. And Bibi, you've worked with a lot of customers around this, so maybe you can cover this piece.

Yes, for sure, Dave. For the affinity questions, you will be asked to provide the total duty and tax amount for a recent transaction, the amount of your last statement and the amount of your last payment to CBSA. And this information can be obtained from your customs broker or from your own internal records.

Thanks, Bibi. So to support your registration, what we've done is we have come up with a registration checklist. Justin is going to be sending that out along with the materials from the actual webinar today. So all attendees will get a copy of that as well.

Dave, I just -- can we just jump back to that slide there.

Yes.

I just want to make a call out here on you made a comment that it has to be exact as what's registered with CRA Canada revenue agency. And I'll tell you that the #1 question that we had when people are registering through the -- on to the portal is it's not working. I can't figure out what the issue is, and it's because of that. When we say 100% accurate, we're talking about commas and period, it must be exactly as you have registered with CRA or you'll get a kickback -- a kicked out on the system. And we put together this registration checklist just to make sure that you have this information in advance of logging on and registering on to the CARM portal. So I just wanted to mention that.

That's great, Steve. And we've got a couple of questions up in the Q&A. Bibi, I want you to hit this one because I'm sure you will know it best. So [ Lindsay ] was asking, can the BAM be a U.S. citizen or do you have to be Canadian?

The BAM can be anyone.

And I think that's a point that I missed, well, while I was doing this. One of the things that the CBSA recommends and that we recommend is that you have multiple BAMs in place, so business account managers. The reason for that is it's got complete control over your account within the CCP. So from that perspective, if somebody were to leave or somebody is out and you need to approve users or something to that effect, it's really important to have multiple users. And I think we've seen from that, you want somebody from customs and compliance. Should you have that perhaps somebody from finance. And really, we'll get into the different user types in a slide or so here.

Yes. Did we answer the other question?

No. Did you want to hit that one, Steve?

Yes. Got it. So this question here, and I've got to say, these are good questions. We have logged in to the CERS portal, and that's the Canadian Export Reporting System. Is that -- will that be replaced by CARM automatically? Or do we need to switch to CARM? Well, the answer is you've got your GCKey, as you registered onto the CERS program, you can use that GCKey as you register on to the CARM portal. You still have to register on to the portal. I hope we answered that there. But great question. Okay. And we have another question in regards to the bank not listed. And Bibi, you're going to be addressing that one in the next couple of slides. Also, can you address any best practices for legal entities that have several operating businesses, each importing as a separate company? Now I would assume here maybe, Bibi, have you had this question posed to you, maybe it's the RM extension with multiple RM extensions.

So each 15 digits needs to be registered in the portal.

Yes. And Justin, maybe you can click on the next one and we'll go through the next couple of questions as we do that. Thank you. So I think this will help to address some of the questions that are popping up. But one of the things that's important to once you've registered, once you are the business account manager, you have multiple business account managers within the organization. What you need to do is go through and delegate authority to the various trade partners. And so really from that perspective, the first trade partners that you're going to look at are internal, right? So the employees come in, create that GCKey or go into one of their log-in partners. And what they'll be able to do is request access to your organization. Once they request access, you're going to set them up as either a read-only, so reader or editor access or a program account manager or a business account manager. So a program account manager is actually, they can see only one of your 15-digit business numbers. So your business number plus the RM, they will only be able to see one of those particular divisions or companies that you have listed on [ yours ]. Business account managers will be able to see everything. So they'll have access to be able to see anything at all. And the reader or editor access fairly simple there. So reader is view only. They would only be underneath, one, so you give an organization one at a time read access to any 1 of your 15-digit numbers. And then you can also have editor access and editor might be to do things like adjustments or look at some of your information, make some subtle changes to a 15-digit number. Again, once the programs and individuals are identified within your organization, you can manage the access there. One of the questions was, what if I had a BAM who's left the company. And I don't know how to reset it because we only had one? I would immediately go out to the CARM support help desk and I'm sure they'll be willing to help and walk you through that issue. If not, come to Bibi, Steve or I, and we can kind of help you escalate it through the CARM Group. But really, from that perspective, you see the importance of having multiple business account managers within the portal because you're kind of stuck at that point. And really from the perspective of delegation of authority, it is critical that before October, you assign any of your customs brokers with authority. And the reason for that is they will not be able to transact a customs accounting document on your behalf through their systems without that delegation of authority. So it's critical that you -- if you only have 1 broker, assign them. If you have multiple brokers, you'll need to go in and assign multiple brokers to make sure that everyone on your list is actually part of your organization and the delegation of authority.

Yes. Dave, just to let you know that CBSA actually made a comment that they strongly suggest having multiple BAMs or a BAM and a PAM for this exact situation, where if somebody has left the company, and then you have to go through the registration process again. So it's important to have at least 2 that know exactly -- essentially what is going on at a BAM or a PAM level. And they are making comments that you should have somebody from customs in the compliance side and also somebody from the finance group, the ones that will be remitting the payment for the duties and taxes.

Yes, for sure. Thanks, Steve.

And I actually wanted to -- I was calling you out here, Bibi, putting you on the spot here. And my question was with having -- as an importer, you can't have multiple customs brokers, how do you manage that from a statement of account perspective, et cetera?

Steve, an importer can give multiple customs brokers, delegation of authority to see all of their transactions, which includes what each customs broker did as well as what the importer did. So it's the delegation of authority piece that allows or prevents users from viewing information in the portal.

Yes. So if you were to give kind of read and editor access to one customs broker, for instance, Steve, you -- they would only see the transactions that they are doing on behalf of the importers, right?

Right. And that's really, I guess, the segregation, Bibi, between a BAM and a PAM?

Well, that was stated earlier. Yes, the difference between a BAM and a PAM is the business -- a PAM is a program account manager and usually is able to see 1 account or 1 program of the business, whereas a BAM has full access to all RM accounts and oversees the whole business.

Good. Thanks for that clarification. That was a key question through many importers registering on the program. Good. Thank you.

So Bibi, we're just going to keep firing questions at you, okay.

Absolutely.

There's another one in the Q&A that says, I'm new to my company. Is there a way to find out exactly what's registered with the CRA and CBSA as far as legal entity name?

Yes, absolutely. There's a business line where you can contact the CRA and get that information prior to registering.

Yes, we can include that in the materials as well.

Yes.

Okay. Last question so far is how many BAMs can we have? And quite honestly, I don't actually know the answer to that. We will find out. But I haven't heard of any limits to having business account managers or program account managers.

Absolutely.

You can label everybody as a business account manager if you wanted to.

Yes. I haven't heard of anything where it said you can have X amount of business account managers or X amount of BAMs. But I think you have to take it into consideration that the responsibility of being a BAM, those responsibilities, you wouldn't want to extend that to multiple people in an organization because then you will have to manage what their access levels are. And I think that's the reason why we have a PAM and a reader-only or editor-only levels in the -- for the levels of the delegation of authority. So take that into consideration also. But to answer the question, Dave, yes, I don't know what the limit is on that. I've never heard that question, but it will be interesting to find out.

Yes. Good question. We'll figure it out. Justin, thank you.

Before I move on. I think we do have one poll for this slide as well.

That's right. I'm sorry. Poll question #2. [Voting]

All right. So that shows a little bit, I think, lighter than we would have expected. But really, from a customs standpoint, and luckily Bibi's getting into this piece next, there will be -- importers are required to hold their own bond, and there will be kind of metered approach from customs through your transactions, where they're going to be monitoring that your bond and payment is up to date. They say to eventually -- if your payment wasn't made and your bond isn't high enough, they're going to start to promote or call out to your account through the portal to say you need to make a payment -- interim payment or you need to increase your bond. And what that could affect is the release of goods into the country. The account could be flagged, should there not be enough for the RPP.

I just wanted -- Justin, we're okay on the polls, because I see we have some question here because it was only showing poll #1, but it appears poll 2 is working okay.

Yes, poll 2 should have worked okay. Most people were able to respond.

Okay. I'll respond back to -- be on a miss. Okay.

Thank you. And then Bibi.

Thanks, Dave. Good afternoon, everyone. So in this part of the program, we are going to discuss financial security, which is a mandatory requirement under CARM. We will address what is a bond; how to calculate your required bond amount; the amount of time it takes to secure a bond; and finally, how to obtain a bond. So first off, what is a bond? A bond is a legally binding contract between 3 parties in this case, principal, obligee and surety. The principal is the importer, the obligee or beneficiary is the CBSA. And the surety is usually an insurance company. In simpler terms, a bond is similar to a cosigner, a party that guarantees that you will fulfill your obligation. And the obligation here is to pay the CBSA for any duties and/or taxes owed to them in full by the due date. Now moving on to how to calculate your required bond amount. Your required bond amount is the average monthly duties and/or taxes paid over a specified 12-month period. To calculate your current required bond amount, you will need to know the amount of duties and/or taxes paid from August 2021 to July 2022. That figure or amount divided by 12 will give you your current required bond amount, not a very complicated formula there. And next, how long does the bond process take? The entire process can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks. There are 2 components to consider here: creation and signing of the bond, which takes time; and then CBSA's approval of the bond, which also takes time. So first, information is gathered and the bond is created and sent to the importer for signature, and then the bond is filed with CBSA for approval. And finally, for this slide, how to obtain a bond? To secure or obtain a bond, you can consult a surety company of your own or you can reach out to us, Expeditors, as we are able to create bond. We're quite well versed in the process and are able to walk you through with ease from start to finish. My contact details are noted in the presentation. So if you need assistance with financial security, please do reach out to me. I will be more than happy to assist. Well, that was a bit of information. So we're going to take some related questions now, which will help to clarify some of the points before moving on.

One of the questions from the group is actually -- is the bond amount calculation always calculated using August to July data and not a rolling 12 months?

So currently, the period -- the bond calculation period is from August 2021 to July '22. As July '22 passes, the bond calculation period will change. So it changes every year.

So is it a rolling 12 months, I guess, is the question? Or does it just kind of move a month every month then we go along?

It changes every July.

Okay. And then I'm sorry, Steve, I know you had a question, too, but there's one other one here. How do I see the bond that was filed with CBSA in the client portal.

Well, bonds that are already existing will be transitioned directly into the portal based on CBSA's, this is what they've told us. They will transition those ones directly into the portal. So you will see a little flag that shows within the portal at some point if you already have an existing bond.

Okay. Thank you, Bibi.

Okay. So I've got a couple of questions here, some quick ones here, Bibi. First, number one, since this is a mandatory requirement of security under the program, importers will no longer be able to essentially piggyback off their customs brokers bond, correct?

That is correct.

Okay. Okay. Now with regards to the financial security what was the common type? Because I know there's various types of security that can be filed, correct?

There are a couple. A surety bond is the most common type, but it's not the only available option. Importers are also able to post financial security in the form of cash directly with the CBSA if they wish.

Okay, okay. And I know the bond requirements today, the amounts are different than they will be the minimum -- I'm talking about the minimum bond amount requirements for the bond compared to the minimum bond requirement under CARM. There's a difference there. What's the difference on that?

Today, the current minimum required bond amount set by CBSA is $5,000. However, in CARM Release 2, that's going to be increased to $25,000.

Okay. All right. One of the other common questions that we get is who is able to sign the bond from the importer?

Once a bond is created, yes, there are 5 titles that typically -- that can sign the bond. Those being owner, President, CEO, Corporate Secretary or Treasurer. So there are specific people that need to sign a bond once...

Signing authority. Okay. So it comes up all the time. Can we use an electronic signature or do we have to stick with the ink signature, wet ink?

Yes. Unfortunately, CBSA will not accept any form of electronic signature, so a wet ink signature is required.

That's okay, fine, a wet ink signature. But I'm going to ask the question, how long does it take CBSA to turn this bond around? Because you have to get the bond in place through a surety company or your customs broker like we can provide security for clients. But that's one process. And then we've got CBSA with their process. How long does that take?

At present times, CBSA is taking about 3 to 4 weeks for the approval piece. So about 50% of the time line is taken by CBSA in the approval process.

Right, right, right. That's kind of what I was getting at. And the need for an ink signature, that is a challenge sometimes because the signing authorities are sometimes out of country. We've experienced that when -- whoever has a signing authority is not around at the time to sign the bond. And it just adds up lengthier delays to get this bond in process.

Yes.

Okay.

So moving on now to retrieving your statement of account from the CARM client portal. So once you've successfully registered on the portal, you will be able to independently access and retrieve your statement of account or SOA. First, log into the portal with your CARM user name and password. And right from the homepage, click on the Financial Information link, which will direct you to your statement of account. Additionally, on this page on the portal, you will be able to view your transaction history as well as any invoices billed to you by the CBSA. On the screen, you will see an example of a statement of account. So accessing your statement of account directly from the CARM client portal means that you will no longer have to wait for your customs broker or service provider to e-mail it to you. So quicker access to your statement of account allows more time for you to review and reconcile your statement prior to making payment to CBSA. And that is a good lead into our next slide, making payments to CBSA. So within the CARM client portal, you can issue payments to CBSA via 3 methods: PAD, Pre-Authorized Debit, credit card; or Interac. You can sign up for PAD, Pre-Authorized Debit very easily within the CARM client portal, a simple and straightforward process with common terms and conditions to accept. No different than the ones we all agreed to when making electronic payments in our own personal lives. With PAD, Pre-Authorized Debit, the CBSA will debit your bank account for the exact amount of your statement of account on payment due date. So the thing to remember with PAD, Pre-Authorized Debit, is to ensure that your account is funded accordingly and that the appropriate limits are set because the amount due will be automatically withdrawn by CBSA on payment due date.

Now Bibi, is there a limit, say on credit card and Interac and PAD?

Yes, there are definitely limits to these methods of payment. The limit for credit card is $5,000; Interac is $25,000; and Pre-Authorized Debit is $100 million, so pretty much unlimited for most of us.

Bibi, just a couple of other questions that came in. So if someone's broker is facilitating payments for them, is not necessarily an indication that they do not have a bond directly with customs and are piggybacking off of their brokers bond?

If a broker is facilitating a payment for an importer, that would indicate that they do have a bond -- the importer does have a bond in place, so facilitating the payment pretty much means that the importer is sending their funds to the customs broker and the customs broker is basically delivering the payment to CBSA on their behalf.

Okay. And I guess -- I'd like to kind of answer that as well, check in with your customs broker, whether it's expeditors or anybody else because if that is happening, they would likely have your bond on file or information around it, whether you have one or not. The second one, sorry, is, does the PAD applied credits that are outstanding? So the Pre-Authorized Debit...

The PAD does not do that. The PAD will just debit the account. So your statement of account will debit any credits.

Right. So it would basically offset the debits and credits owing and then they would just take the amount owing out of your account.

Right, right. Your statement of account will be settled. Any credits or debits will be settled on your statement of account and whatever the final amount of your statement of account is, that amount will be removed from your bank account on payment due date.

All right. And then one other one here. Is there a limit for online banking? And I believe the answer is no.

So let's -- the limit for online banking is actually $100 million as well. So online banking is not done within the portal though, we can just -- we'll address that very shortly.

Perfect. Thanks.

So there are 3 payment methods within the portal. So on to the next slide now. In addition to making payments in the CARM client portal, you're also able to remit payments to CBSA via online banking through an approved CBSA bank or financial institution. And for reference, here's a listing of some of the CBSA approved financial institutions.

So Bibi, what if I didn't find my bank on this list, what would I do?

So if your bank or a financial institution is not on the list, it is still advisable for you to consult with your bank as they may have an affiliation with one of the CBSA-approved banks. But we encourage you to explore all of the available payment options.

Great. Thanks.

With regards to the banking, Bibi, we handle a great deal of nonresident importers, and I would say the bulk of the nonresidents reside in the U.S. So that's usually not an issue for a bank because they have an affiliation here in Canada with another bank. But when we have clients that are nonresidents and setting up their bonds, these clients can be overseas, that sometimes gets a little tricky. But in most cases, you're right, if you check with the financial institution at origin, they should have an affiliation here in Canada. It's not an issue, but they may not be on the list, but there is some sort of an affiliation definitely.

And there's always PAD. PAD is a really easy and a good one to use, for sure. That will become more prevalent, I think.

Yes, similar to ACH in United States.

Similar to ACH in the States with most U.S. companies are very familiar with where U.S. Customs just reaches out and pulls whatever is due.

Right, right. So one of the other questions that came in is in regards to the statement of account. And it asks, does it also include drawbacks and refunds? So I believe the answer to that is yes, it would have any debits and credits that are possible to and from the CBSA.

Absolutely. Yes. And you can log into the portal and view your statement of account on the 25th of the month, and you will be able to view all of that information readily there before any sort of payment, which is on the -- usually on the last business day of the month.

Bibi, that was a great lead in to the next one. So basically, from that standpoint, the SOA is kind of clocked at the 25th of the month. But through the portal itself, you can always see what's outstanding as far as payment requirements or any kind of debits or credits coming back. So the SOA and the printed statement of account may not be the accurate picture of duties and taxes owing, let's say, on the 26th, but that is the statement as of the 25th that is due to be paid on the last day of the month. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Thank you.

I have a -- with regards to the bonds, Bibi, I have a quick little Expeditors' fun fact for everybody on the webinar. Our monthly statement of account that could be in the millions upon millions of dollars. It's our total monthly duty and tax bill. 97% of that statement of account is paid directly by importers on -- paid directly by importers to the CBSA. So of that total duties and tax bill, 97% of it is managed by importers directly. And making a payment to CBSA can be as simple as paying your monthly credit card or utilities bill online. And it's -- we remember the old days when it was daunting as it was -- as it used to be when we would only pay CBSA with hundreds and hundreds of paper checks. So I'm sure you remember that one well, Bibi.

It wasn't that long ago. It wasn't the old days actually. It was maybe a couple of years ago. We were...

With ARL, right?

Yes. Things have changed for the better.

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. So how can we support this process? And through our network of offices, throughout Canada, you can reach out to your customs managers at the various offices or your local expeditors representative. And please, please don't hesitate to reach out to Bibi, Dave or myself. We are here to assist and provide support when and where needed. And in addition, from a support perspective, CBSA has a detailed onboarding guidelines, which can be found in the CARM client portal. And the CARM client support -- CARM client support has been very helpful in assisting in onboarding importers, and I would suggest to reach out when needed. And I believe we have our last poll question.

So now that the CARM onboarding webinar is complete, how comfortable and confident do you feel about registering for the CCP? [Voting]

Well, there we go. We get to eat and live another day. So that's good because if it went the other way, we were going to toss in hat who had to scramble for dinner next week.

Yes, exactly.

So glad we were able to share that information with you guys and that it seems to have kind of helped out. Again, to Steve's point, we're here to support. We've got all of our support information including the managers throughout the country on this webinar. And next up, we are going to go through any of the questions that we were not able to address when we were going through. So Bibi, I do not understand the first one or Steve, maybe you guys can take that.

Is there a place I can look up the transaction codes, for example, BC Assessment B3.

Yes. That is available on the CSCB website. So you can get on there and just search, do a quick search for the -- I imagine you -- the person means the account security by transaction codes. That information can be found or you can possibly reach out to myself or your customs -- that information can definitely be found on the CSCB website.

So what -- is that just identifying your account security Bibi?

I believe that's what the question is, yes. Transaction codes, I think it means account security. The first 5 digits before the transaction number.

Okay. So if that's not what you're looking for, please feel free to reach out to any of us, and we'll try to answer that question...

Reach out to me anyway. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

And then once registered, how long does it take to get access? So I found that it's immediate unless you are not the first person registering in, then you've got to wait until they delegate authority to you. So as soon as that person connects you to your organization, you have immediate access.

And again -- sorry, Dave. I just wanted to bring up the CARM registration checklist that we will be sending out. Complete that before you go to register because you will have all the information there. And it really takes like less than 10 minutes to register on to the CARM portal.

That's correct.

Again, you need that information.

So the deadline for registration for CARM. So there's a couple of different deadlines that are in mind. So the registration for the portal, I mean, the deadline is October, but I would not wait for deadline because you do have to get delegation of authority. You have to get all of your trade chain partners linked up to your business. Quite honestly, it's something that is quick and easy. I would get it done right away. And then for -- from a bond standpoint, so to have your own importer bond in place, again, the deadline is October. But as Bibi and Steve were talking about, it's taking 6 or 8 weeks today to kind of go through that process. We are advising our customers or companies that we're talking to, to get the bond in place no later than June because really, if you look at the time line, you look at summer vacations, all that kind of fun stuff, it can really run away from you getting that bond set up. And the CBSA has been pretty open that an importer bond is a requirement for R2.

One more question that just came in. Can the broker operate -- can the broker operate and do all necessary functions with having only read access or do they need to have at least PAM level access?

So with -- so there's 3 different checkmarks underneath the trade chain partner. So read, edit and then kind of view all. And really from that perspective, you can do read and edit for a customs broker, and then they will be able to transact on your behalf. They will not be able to go in and see any kind of transactions if you have multiple customs brokers, nor would they be able to do other actions on your account, and we'll kind of get into what those other actions are in the next series or the next part of this series, which will be more related to release 2 in CARM? And how the CADs are transacting and adjustments and all that kind of fun stuff?

Okay. A couple more questions coming in. Do importers need to delegate authority to surety provider. And if so, what role should they be assigned?

So the surety provider is actually being connected by CBSA. So I believe that delegation of authority happens from that connection already, unless I'm mistaken, Bibi, but I don't believe...

Perhaps...

Delegate authority to a surety provider.

No. You would only delegate authority to your customs broker or a service provider, not the surety company.

Yes. So customs broker or maybe a consultant if you have one, all of your employees that you want to have access, those are the people that you're going through with the delegation of authority.

Next question that came in. Did you say an importer bond is needed by June? If we have our brokers pay our account, do we still need a bond.

So an importer bond is absolutely a requirement under CARM for -- from the CBSA. So yes, you do need an importer bond. Second to that is, did I say it's required by June? I did not. I said it was required by October. However, best practice would be that it's in place around June so that you're not scrambling waiting in line and possibly mess up the transactions that are happening across the [ border ] by October.

And 1 more question. What if you don't set up their CARM by the deadline, will they still be able to submit for CARM later than the deadline.

So yes, you can submit for CARM later than the deadline. So you could register for the portal after because, of course, there will be new importers coming online throughout the course of time. But really from that perspective, if you do not have CARM registered, you do not have the portal set up, you will not get a statement of account. And so you won't be able to pay your duties and taxes with the CBSA or know about what they are. And then second to that is without delegation of authority to a customs broker, they will not be able to send the customs accounting document or any adjustments on your behalf. So the accounting for goods will not happen.

So clearances will be an issue as well.

Yes. Yes. absolute definite supply chain delays, if that's the case. So clearly, you need to be registered. And the bottom line is don't leave it till October. I would suggest getting on it right away, particularly the bond security requirements. So I think that's it for the questions. And I have to admit there have been some excellent questions, absolutely. So -- and lastly, it's important that all importers register on the CARM client portal as soon as possible. As a CARM program, as we mentioned, it's mandatory. And as we get closer to the implementation date of October, it will only take longer to secure the required surety bond with CBSA. And as I mentioned, expeditors can also support in securing the bond for CBSA on your behalf. So our next webinar will be related to Release 2, which is October, which you will receive an invite to shortly will address the changes in CBSA's entry processing, reporting and payment time lines. So again, please, please don't hesitate to reach out to your expeditors representative for support or with Bibi or Dave or myself and closing off with Justin with your last comments. Thank you.

Thanks, Steve. So everyone, that is now all for this webinar. Please stay connected and scan the QR code shown here to subscribe to our regional communications. As mentioned, everyone will receive a follow-up e-mail with these slides and other CARM related resources that you may like to have. And once again, after you leave this webinar, please fill the survey, it should pop up in your browser. So thank you to our 3 speakers, and thank you all for joining. I hope you enjoyed and learned something new. Everyone, please have a great day.

Thanks very much. Bye for now.