There are not many subjects more boring, so to speak, than customs. But in the end, this is an essential component of the global economy and also a significant bottleneck in international trade. AiDock was founded in 2018 with this insight. “One of the significant bottlenecks in the global supply chain is the customs declaration,” explains Eddie Glenzen, co-founder and CEO of AiDock. “This is an activity that almost all over the world, even in the most advanced companies, is carried out using very cumbersome methods, in a way that takes 30-60 minutes to ship, and at a cost of tens of dollars per declaration. It may not sound like much, but when you multiply it by millions of shipments to a small company every year – these are astronomical numbers.”
What the company does, in the abstract, is to take the waybill of delivery, which is almost always on physical paper, extract from it with text recognition technologies (OCR) the various items, classify them according to the customs book, there is such a thing, and write down what their tax obligations and import permits are. “I’ll give you an example. A certain company tried to bring a plastic component to its water bar. The customs broker asked to pay 12% tax on the item. We went into the picture and said that there is a mistake here, if it is a designated part for the machine, the tax should be zero.” This is said by Tomer Shamir, co-founder and COO of the company, who grew up in this industry. “Or the case of an importer who brought Berks pads. The customs broker claimed that the approval of the Ministry of Transport for the product was needed and set a tax of 40%. But since it’s not a complete kit but only brake pads, you don’t have to pay tax and you don’t need permits. The customs broker always goes for the safe side, so that the customs don’t come to him with complaints.”
This is big money, Shamir emphasizes: “Globally, the accuracy rate of customs brokerage is 75%. In Canada, they investigated this and discovered an annual excess payment of $700 billion because of over-taxation. In our system, the accuracy rate is 95% from the first day and it is gradually improving. But our system also has the ability to say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m not sure’ in the item, and this is where the human worker fits in. But he only invests his time in what is necessary, and the system learns from him.”