ACI — Advance Commercial Information — is the Canada Border Services Agency programme under which carriers send cargo and conveyance data electronically before arriving in Canada. For a highway carrier it is the eManifest, which CBSA must receive and validate at least one hour before the truck reaches the first port of arrival.
Also called: ACI eManifest, eManifest Canada, CBSA eManifest
ACI is the Canada-bound counterpart of ACE, with the same division of labour: the carrier reports the truck and its cargo, and the customs broker requests release of the goods, usually through PARS. Each shipment is identified by a cargo control number that begins with the carrier's CBSA-issued carrier code.
The two governments do not ask for the same things, and treating the two filings as one is how mistakes happen. For a carrier running both directions it means two filings, two portals and two rule sets covering the same truck on the same day — which is why border work tends to collect around one person in the office, and slows down when that person is away.
This lives mainly in eManifest, where 273 catalogued capabilities are live. Each item says which plan it is on.
Each cargo control number is your CBSA carrier code plus the load's probill, kept within CBSA's length rules, and the lead sheet carries the conveyance reference number as a scannable barcode.
Fleet and up
A filing assistant lists every value the eManifest Portal will ask for, in the portal's field order, with copy buttons and a count of anything still empty.
Fleet and up
If CBSA's systems are down, an ACI crossing lays out the paper contingency steps for the driver and the office, and the resubmission that follows.
Fleet and up
For a highway carrier it is the eManifest, which CBSA must receive and validate at least one hour before the truck reaches the first port of arrival.
For highway shipments, CBSA must receive and validate the cargo and conveyance data at least one hour before the truck reaches the first port of arrival in Canada.
PARS is the broker's request for release of the goods, submitted before arrival. The cargo control number links the two, and it is the number printed on the PARS barcode.
On the Fleet plan, Border Desk prepares the ACI data, the cargo control numbers and the barcoded paper, ready to file in the eManifest Portal.