Choosing customs software: what to ask a vendor

Choose customs declaration software on four things you can check before you sign: whether it files the declaration or prepares it for the software that does, whether it reaches the national system you declare in, who checks each case before it is filed, and where your shipment data is processed. Then test it on your own past shipments, where you already know the answer. The same holds for a customs agency and for an importer's own customs team.

Filing software or a preparation layer

As a rule, declarations are exchanged with customs by electronic data-processing techniques [1]. The software that does this is filing software: it holds the declaration, sends it to the national customs system as a message and receives the answers, such as acceptance, release or a control. In Germany, taking part in ATLAS needs certified software, certified separately for each ATLAS release [2], and prior registration [3].

A preparation layer sits before it. It reads the shipment email and its documents, fills in the declaration, proposes tariff codes and asks where the documents are silent. It does not replace the filing software; the prepared declaration still has to reach it. Some products do both.

Ask the vendor which of the two it is, and if it prepares, how the result reaches the software you file in: as a file your declarant imports, typed over by hand, or through a link the two vendors maintain. Each means different work for your declarants.

Which national systems it has to reach

• Germany: ATLAS. zoll.de lists the certified participant software for ATLAS release 10.1, with the name and version of each product and the procedure areas and message groups its certificate covers [2]. Check that import is on the certificate for the version you would run. ATLAS also has a test operation, where participants and software makers send declarations of every kind to virtual test offices [3].
• Netherlands: DMS. DMS works with messages described in the MIG DMS 4.0 or 4.1, the guidelines that software vendors and in-house developers build to [4]. Since 16 May 2026, documents customs asks for in a control of an import or export declaration are delivered through DMS, not by email [5]. Ask whether the software does that too.
• Belgium: IDMS. IDMS replaces PLDA for imports, and since 30 September 2025 economic operators have to lodge their import declarations through IDMS as far as possible [6]. Since August 2026, declarations can also be created and lodged in the IDMS web interface [7].
• Ireland: AIS. An importer must lodge its import declaration in AIS, with its own software or a provider's, and that software, or its agent's, must interface with AIS [8]. AIS V2 went live on 15 September 2026, and from 16 December 2026 AIS V1 can no longer process import declarations [9]. Ask which version the software runs.

The systems will change too: from 1 March 2031 importers may provide their data through the EU Customs Data Hub, and from 1 March 2034 they must [11]. The guide on the EU customs reform has the dates.

Who checks each case

Whoever lodges a declaration is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the information in it and for the documents that support it, and a customs representative who lodges it is bound by the same obligations [1]. Software takes none of that over. So the question is not how much of a declaration the software fills in, but whether a person still checks each case before it is filed, and what they see when they do.

Ask the vendor to show it on one case:

• which values were read from a document, and from which line;
• which tariff codes are proposals, and to how many digits;
• what is still open, and the question that would close it;
• who confirmed each code, and when;
• whether a case can reach the filing step without a person opening it.

A value without the line it came from leaves your declarant to look it up again. A proposed code can be checked with its path in the free HS code finder.

Where your data is processed

Shipment emails carry personal data: names, email addresses and phone numbers of contacts at shippers and consignees. A vendor that processes them for you is a processor under the GDPR. You may use a processor only if it can show appropriate technical and organisational measures, and the processing has to be set out in a contract that names its subject, duration, nature and purpose [10]. The processor may not bring in another processor without your written authorisation, and personal data may go to a country outside the EU only under the conditions of Chapter V, such as an adequacy decision of the Commission [10].

Ask where the data is stored and processed, including by any language model the software calls, how long cases are kept, and whether they are used for training.

What to ask a vendor

1. Does it file the declaration, or prepare it for the software we file in?
2. For which systems, and which release or version: ATLAS, DMS, IDMS, AIS?
3. How does a prepared declaration reach our filing software?
4. Can a case be filed without a person opening it?
5. Does every value show the document line it came from?
6. Where is our data stored and processed, and by which sub-processors?
7. How is it priced: per declaration, per tariff line or per user?
8. Will you prepare 20 of our past shipments before we sign?

The comparison page shows how the AI tools that prepare declarations describe themselves, and who files in each case.

How to test it on your own shipments

Your own past cases are the best test, because you know how they ended. The documents for customs controls have to be kept for at least three years [1], so you have them.

1. Pick about 20 past shipments: clean ones, long invoices, unclear descriptions, a missing origin proof.
2. Send the vendor the documents as they arrived, the email with its attachments, and the declaration that was filed.
3. Ask for each case to be prepared from the documents alone and returned next to the filed declaration, field by field.
4. Look at every difference: tariff code per line, customs value, origin and preference, quantities and weights, and what was left open.
5. Decide for each difference who was right. The filed declaration is not always the correct one.
6. Have the declarant who would use the software check five prepared cases and say what they had to look up again.

Past cases carry the same personal data, so put the processing contract in place before you send them [10].

Athren is a preparation layer: it prepares the case from the shipment email, fills in the declaration from the documents and proposes a code where the invoice is clear. Your declarant checks what is open and files it in your own customs software. Athren files nothing.