SPE15050 - Duty management and closing stock balance systems: use of the closing stock balance system

Note: This manual is under review following Brexit and is likely to be withdrawn. If there is anything within this manual you use regularly, please email hmrcmanualsteam@hmrc.gov.uk to let us know. Please check the other guidance available on GOV.UK from HMRC.

When the closing stock balance is being used the details of consignments, quantities and dates of removal are entered into the commercial records before removal, with the duty management system being updated later. This must be updated by any commercial inventory system no later than overnight following the transaction by which the goods were received or removed from the warehouse. This applies irrespective of whether the next day is a trading day or not and must include weekends and bank holidays.

Any duty management system that cannot meet the above requirments must not be approved for customs warehousing purposes. Authorisation holders may attempt to co-ordinate their updates to coincide with their Customs Freight Simplified Procedure (CFSP) notifications to CHIEF. This is not adequate for customs warehouse purposes, and should not be allowed.

The commercial records and duty management system are to be regarded as one system (and therefore constitute the customs warehouse stock account) for the purposes of:

a) the CFSP EIDR authorisation, and

b) the stock records.

Note: Northern Ireland (NI) customs authorisations will continue to fall within the provisions of the Union Customs Code (UCC), as retained by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and CEMA 1979.

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