What is a supplier declaration and why does it take so much time?
A supplier declaration (also referred to as a Long Term Supplier's Declaration or LTSD) is a written confirmation from a supplier that delivered goods have a specific preferential origin. Exporters need this declaration to support a EUR.1 certificate or an invoice declaration, which allows the buyer in the destination country to pay reduced or zero import duties. On paper, the process is straightforward: the supplier confirms the origin, the exporter records it, and uses it in the customs declaration. In practice, it quickly involves dozens of suppliers, each with their own layout, language, and validity date. A single missing or expired declaration can hold up an entire shipment. That is why export administrators at higher trade volumes consistently spend too much time tracking down, verifying, and archiving these documents.
Where does processing supplier declarations break down?
There are three recognizable bottlenecks. First: format variation. One supplier sends a PDF on letterhead, another a completed Word document, a third a scanned signature on a five-year-old form. No mandatory standard format exists, which means every document looks different and requires manual interpretation. Second: annual renewal. Long-term declarations are typically valid for one year. That means a new round of requesting, receiving, and verifying starts every year, with every opportunity for gaps. Third: linking to articles. A declaration often covers a range of articles or article groups. That relationship must match the article registration in the ERP or TMS, otherwise the declaration holds no value during a customs audit. Most companies still make that link manually, in a spreadsheet or as a standalone attachment to an article record.
What does automating supplier declarations solve?
A document AI like dottle reads incoming declarations regardless of format: PDF, scan, Word, or Excel. It recognizes the relevant fields, such as supplier name, article description, country of origin, declaration type, and validity period, and converts them into structured data. That data goes directly to the system you work with, whether that is an ERP, a customs platform, or your own database. Because dottle does not require templates per supplier, no new configuration is needed when a supplier changes their format. Differences or missing fields are flagged so a staff member can review them before approval. That is the model: dottle handles the reading and data entry, the decision stays with the user. In practice, this means the annual renewal round becomes less of a catch-up exercise and more of a controlled flow: declarations arrive, are read out, linked, and archived, with a notification when something is missing or about to expire.
When does automating supplier declarations not make sense?
Honesty is warranted here. If you work with one or two fixed suppliers who submit the same document every year, automation will likely cost more effort than it saves. The setup always requires some attention to system integration and validation rules, and that investment only pays off at a certain volume. The same applies if your supplier base consistently delivers poor source documents, such as handwritten forms with no consistent structure: automation speeds up intake but does not fix the quality of the source data itself. And if the process is not yet defined, meaning there is no clear owner responsible for maintaining declarations and linking them to articles, a tool only helps after that is sorted. Automating a disorganized process makes it disorganized faster.
How does integration with customs and ERP systems work?
dottle connects to the systems where the work already happens: SAP, Dynamics 365 Business Central, Exact, AFAS Profit, and other platforms. For customs agents and exporters working with specialized customs software, the same principle applies: the extracted data is delivered in the format the receiving system expects. That means no duplicate entry and no standalone spreadsheets running alongside the system. Integration uses existing connections; an implementation is typically live within two weeks, with no setup fee.