The Challenge
CARM and the ECCRD Addendum changed how declarations are submitted and how duty recovery is handled, at a point when declaration data was still assembled by hand across systems. Validation happened after submission, so errors surfaced as compliance failures rather than being caught at entry.
Errors surfaced as compliance failures, not entry warnings.
No way to reconstruct how declarations were produced.
Customer history held outside the declaration process.
Large files and high transaction rates handled manually.
Approach & Solution
smartData built a customs compliance operating system on MERN with PostgreSQL, automating CAD submissions to CBSA CARM integration standards. A validation engine applies rules before submission with real-time feedback and detailed audit trails, so errors are caught at entry rather than discovered as compliance failures downstream.
Because dependency on the CARM API was a structural risk, an abstraction layer isolates the platform from interface change. Scale was designed against the upper bound — job queues sized for 100MB files, 10,000 transactions per minute and 1,000 concurrent users.
Key Features
Rules applied at entry with real-time feedback.
Regulatory interface changes absorbed in one place.
Job queues sized for 100MB declaration files.
Customer history attached to the declarations it concerns.
Product Showcase
Final Outcome
Errors are caught at entry instead of discovered as compliance issues, every declaration carries a reconstructable audit trail, and compliance rules sit in central configuration — so regulatory change can be absorbed without a rewrite.
