What to do when you get audited.

If you are either being audited or are notified that you are going to be audited - it is very important that you contact your customs broker as soon as you are made aware.

Your customs broker can save you countless hours of time and energy by providing information to Customs on your behalf. A customs broker keeps excellent books and records of your imports and should be able to quickly gather the information that Customs is looking for.

A Customs audit should not be a scary process. Many of our importer clients have been audited and both the importer and ourselves have been satisfied with the outcomes of the audits we have seen.

We are by no means perfect - but we do take compliance very, very seriously.
Here are some ways that we strive for compliance -

• We have an in house Consulting and Compliance Team that has many years of experience in Compliance, Tariff, Valuation and Origin issues.
• We send out a "Self Compliance" document with every invoice as a double check for our clients to review their shipments for accuracy.
• We offer online tutorials to educate importers and exporters on the importance of compliance.
• We have an intensive entry checking process to review for errors and ommissions.
• We have highly trained, knowledgeable, qualified people handling our clients work.

Customs audits can be a scary process - but it doesn't have to be if you're taking a big picture approach to compliance.

Contact your customs broker for more information.

Happy Earth Day

Earth day is April 22 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

Here at A & A, we have been doing some things to lessen our impact on the Earth.

Below is a list of items that we have started - 

• Installed motion activated lighting in washrooms
• Installed motion activated lighting in infrequently used rooms
• Purchasing energy efficient PC's, Notebook and servers
• Recycling old, outdated PC's
• Shutting down PC's overnight for Earth Day
• We black-out monitors after 5 minutes of idle time
• Using half the lights in the IT office
• Turning off server room lighting
• Encouraging no printing on Earth Day and as little printing as possible always
• Defaulting printers to two sided on Earth Day
• Lower wattage bulbs in our office lighting
• Recycling programs in our offices
• I drive a Hybrid vehicle

We consider the environmental impact before making a purchase of a product or service.

An Earth Day logo will be on our website today and tomorrow to 'inspire awareness of and appreciate for the Earth's environment.' 

I believe this quote sums things up very well "WE DO NOT INHERIT THE EARTH FROM OUR ANCESTORS: WE BORROW IT FROM OUR CHILDREN."

Congratulations on a record breaking Sun Run!

Our first (and definitely not our last!) Vancouver Sun Run team had a fantastic day on Sunday. Despite it being one of the coldest days in Sun Run history, our people braved the elements and walked, jogged and ran their hearts out!


The rolling wave start meant that some people had finished the race before others even crossed the starting line. The Sun Run organizers do a fantastic job of keeping the event flowing.

When the finish line came into sight - everyone turned on their jets and it was a sprint to the end.

We're a little sore today and that memory will soon fade as we start setting our goals for next year's run!
Congratulations to everyone who participated in this wonderful event - and an extra special congratulations to all of the "Team A & A" runners!

Say hello to our Vancouver Sun Run Team

This Sunday, April 20th, the "Team A & A" corporate Sun Run Team will participate in the 24th annual Sun Run in Vancouver, B.C. (We are ignoring the forecast for rain / snow!)

The Sun Run has broken registration records with over 55,000 people this year! To put that into perspective - this event is almost double the size of some of the largest marathons in the world, and double the size of the Honolulu Marathon.

For Vancouver-ites - the total attendance will be the equivalent of 3 Vancouver Canucks hockey games spilling onto the streets! Not for the claustrophobic!

Back to our A & A Sun Run Team - I am very proud of our first corporate team. They've been training hard. Walking, jogging, running - eating well, drinking a lot of water in anticipation for the big 10K event. For many of them, it is their first time going this distance. For others, they are dusting off their running shoes and getting back at it.

I look forward to doing a re-cap after the big day on Sunday. Good luck everyone - it's a great accomplishment!

April is Wellness Month at A & A

Each week we will have a different theme to focus our awareness:

· Week 1: Mind/Body/Spirit: this week will jumpstart our wellness month by focusing on the holistic approach—our physical, mental, spiritual and emotional dimensions.

· Week 2: Nutritional Fitness: this week we’ll focus our attention to how we fuel our bodies and how that relates to our health and happiness.

· Week 3: Emotional/Mental Health: we will look at ways to challenge our minds, relax our bodies, and focus on positive thinking.

· Week 4: Physical Fitness: we will take this week to focus on how to achieve our goals & on how taking care of our bodies takes care of our minds and emotions.

We will also be taught how to properly set up our desk chair, keyboard and monitor to ensure we are practicing the best ergonomics.

So, when I saw this video recently, I had a good chuckle -

Our Customer Service options

Over the years, we have found that there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to serving you when you have questions or requests for information.

We believe we've done a great job at providing a number of options for you, and I'd like to outline some of those here -

1) Telephone - We take pride in the fact that we have multiple receptionists to take your phone calls. Our goal is to answer the calls within 2 rings and either provide you with the answer right there or transfer you only once to a live voice for further help.

We don't have an automated answering service - because we have been told that you like to call and talk to a a human. Frankly - don't we all? We also dislike 'voice mail jail' - when you can never seem to get a hold of a human and can't get out of voice mail. If you ever get transferred to a voice mail on our system and decide you would like to talk to someone rather than leave a message - you can simply press "0" and get back to a live voice. We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with our own people and they can get your answer for you.

2) Fax - We have all of our phone and fax numbers listed here on our Contact Us page - http://www.aacb.com/contact/index.asp

3) email / Internet - We are very proud of the system that we have implemented for our email and online requests. Our Online Customer Care Centre - http://aacb.custhelp.com/

We have hundreds of Frequently Asked Questions posted here. If you have a question that is not posted, you can Ask a Question and we will respond. The system automatically generates a response to you to let you know that we have received it and are processing it.

Any questions that you ask are stored in your own personal database that you can refer back to anytime.

There are also other options such as asking to be notified if the answer ever changes (Customs regulations constantly change.), and another feature lets you email the question and answer to yourself or a colleague. All at the push of a button.

So, whether it's phone, fax or email - we treat each of your requests with the same high priority to make sure they are treated with a sense of urgency.

Please try them out and let me know what you think.