Microhelp Ltd., the developers of IT systems which primarily address the needs of Public (and Bonded) warehouses, freight forwarders and importers, are warning that time is running out in which new importers can apply for a £2,000 grant to help with their expenses during the Brexit transition.

The government grant is intended to help new importers with their transition and additional responsibilities and to cover the cost of software, training, system related hardware and other similar expenses incurred.

However, HMRC have recently announced that applications for the grant of up to £2000 for new importers will close at the end of June.

Meanwhile, importers of non-controlled goods from Europe are able to record their consignments in their own records (EIDR – Entry into Declarant’s Records) and have 175 days from the date of import within which to report the details to HMRC. It’s likely that this will ultimately reduce to 30 days as is currently the case for International (as opposed to European) imports.

Microhelp Ltd can help, they have made a number of modifications to their data capture functionality and have bolted on their proven HMRC interface. The basis of the provision of the required data is to encode the data into an EDIFACT message and then to transmit this to HMRC. They will then reply with a response (also in EDIFACT format). The good news is that the program converts the message into the correct format – all you need to do is e-mail it to HMRC and they’ll e-mail you back with their response.

The software is £299 plus 12 months at £100 per month (max. for most companies) and £200 training, that’s £1799 + VAT for the first year or nothing at all if you get the grant!

For more information, please visit www.microhelp.co.uk and follow the links.