SPE15060 - Duty management and closing stock balance systems: approving closing stock balance systems

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Closing stock balance systems as described in SPE15200 can be authorised provided the following conditions are met:

1. The trader is classified as low to normal risk.

2. The duty management system is updated on a daily basis (within 24 hours irrespective of whether the next day is a trading day) when the quantity of goods held under the customs warehousing procedure has been determined and identified in the system.

3. The commercial system and the duty management system can be regarded as one system for the purposes of the:

  • entry in declarants records (EIDR) authorisation

and

  • stock records.

4. The trader has arrangements in place to ensure that duty suspended stock has the appropriate documentation available (such as licences and/or tariff preference certificates) before it is accessed for pick/removal to free circulation.

5. There is an audit trail from the commercial system to the update of the duty management system.

6. It is possible to carry out physical examinations (if required) and that any documentation for release to free circulation can be related to the goods.

7. If common storage has been approved (see SPE15465), the system can identify equivalent products (for example, by product code) and apply the rules correctly, that is the goods have the same 8-digit commodity code, commercial quality and technical characteristics.

8. If UK Agricultural Policy (UKAP) (or CAP for NI) goods are included the UKAP (or CAP for NI) requirements are fully met.

Note: You should ensure that before any closing stock balance system is authorised that it has been tested to ensure that it can handle the proposed volume of goods to be entered and removed (the warehouse keeper should provide evidence that this testing has taken place).

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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