Customs data might not sound like a finance leader’s top priority - but it should be.
Every import, declaration, and tariff decision directly affects your company’s cash flow, margins, and risk exposure. Yet most finance teams never see the full picture. With modern tools like CAT360, CFOs can finally gain visibility, automate the analysis, and bring customs into finance control where it belongs.
1. Customs Costs Directly Impact Profit Margins
Even a small misclassification or valuation error can increase landed costs by several percentage points. Without data oversight, these errors go unnoticed until profitability slips.
CAT360 highlights anomalies automatically, showing where duty overpayments or inefficiencies are eroding margin.
2. Duty Reclaims Represent Hidden Cash Flow Opportunities
Overpaid customs duties are often recoverable, but most businesses never check.
CAT360 instantly identifies reclaim potential, transforming what’s typically a forensic exercise into a simple dashboard view for finance leaders.
3. Compliance Failures Create Financial Risk
An HMRC audit can lead to costly assessments and penalties. Finance teams are ultimately accountable, even when declarations are outsourced.
With CAT360’s audit-ready compliance reports, CFOs can see where the risks are before HMRC does.
4. Data Visibility Drives Strategic Decision-Making
Without a consolidated customs view, it’s impossible to assess true landed cost, supplier performance, or import trends.
CAT360 aggregates data from all brokers and suppliers, providing CFOs with a single source of truth for informed decision-making.
5. Customs Data Influences Forecasting and Budgeting
Duties, VAT deferments, and commodity fluctuations all feed into working capital forecasts.
CAT360 helps finance teams model these variables accurately, ensuring customs costs are no longer a blind spot in cashflow planning.
6. Cross-Functional Accountability Starts with Transparency
Finance shouldn’t have to accept customs numbers at face value. Visibility gives CFOs the confidence to challenge supply chain, logistics, and brokers when things don’t add up.
CAT360’s clear dashboards make it easy to question assumptions with data not opinion
7. Automation Reduces Complexity and Confusion
Interpreting customs data is notoriously time-consuming. Manual spreadsheets and fragmented reports lead to mistakes and missed opportunities.
CAT360 automates the heavy lifting, extracting, analysing, and presenting data in plain English, empowering CFOs to act decisively without needing to be customs experts.
For CFOs, customs shouldn’t be a black box. It’s a data-rich source of financial insight one that, when properly harnessed, can improve margins, recover lost cash, and reduce exposure.
With CAT360, finance leaders can move from reactive oversight to proactive control turning customs from a compliance headache into a measurable source of value.
Start your free 14-day trial of CAT360 today and see how AI² — the fusion of automation and expert insight — can uncover savings, reduce risk, and give you full control of your customs operations. No card required, just instant intelligence.
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