Changelog

What has shipped

Everything you can go and use, newest first, with the date it went live. Work with no visible surface — the plumbing — is left out. What we are building next is on the roadmap.

207 changes since 22 Aug 2026

October 2026

8 OctChecks
Every problem on a house bill says which house bill it is on
The full form’s list of problems to fix, and the file checker’s findings, now name the bill above each one — “House bill 4 · <its HBL number>”, or the master B/L — so eight house bills missing an HS code no longer read as eight identical “Item 1” rows. Drafts made from e-mailed bills also leave the service terms (“CY TO CY”) and the bill’s ORIGINAL or COPY stamp out of the goods description.
8 OctPlatform
Accepting a colleague’s invitation keeps the organisation you already filed from
If you are the only member of an organisation you have used — filings, manifests, kept files, the address book, API keys, a saved portal login or its filing profile — accepting an invitation to another no longer deletes it: you stay in it and join the new one beside it, and the organisation mark in the header switches between the two. Only an organisation in which nothing was ever saved is removed when you accept.
7 OctFiling
Bills by e-mail: the line’s PAN on every box, its sizes, and a bill sent as two files
A master bill whose number carries no line’s letters — a Maersk waybill, a TS Lines number — now gets the line’s PAN on the master and on every container, from the line the bill names as its issuer. Box sizes follow the line where its consolidations agree on one code. A bill sent as two files (the bill and its attached sheet of containers) is read as one, so its ports, date and VCN are no longer lost; a total that only counts the containers takes its packages from the containers’ own lines; and the container clause and the paperwork around the goods (“5*40HQ CONTAINERS S.T.C”, GSTIN and IEC lines) are left out of the description — while a bill listing each kind of goods with its own HS code keeps every kind. An HS code printed as “HSCODE”, “HS-CODE” or with a long dash is read, and a printed code that could not be read is said rather than dropped. In the full form, Combine and switch stays open until its save lands, and says why when the save is refused. Marks printed as “AS PER COMMERCIAL INVOICE” are written as the marks rather than at the head of the goods, and a container size code follows your own habit only once four boxes on two bills or more agree.
7 OctVessels
CSN cut-offs: a call being confirmed by its line shows on your CSN and in VCN search
When a line’s advisory for your CSN’s call waits for the line’s own check, your CSN page and list and VCN search now say “Being confirmed by the line”, as the board does, rather than that no line has published one. A call customs’ record names no one line for is said as that, never as a line’s; the home page’s “closing next” lists the soonest cut-offs, estimates included and marked, with each one’s time on a phone too; and an older estimate counted to the day reads “by the start of” that day everywhere it is shared.
7 OctChecks
Amendments and exports: a bill with no amendment type named as 305, a dock’s code in the port field, and a whole-CSN deletion sent as an update
On an SCA, a bill whose own amendment type is empty now says so in customs’ words — it is refused 305, “Incorrect Message Type For Amendment” — and a 305 on an acknowledgement comes with its own fix. A customs location code such as a dock’s, given where the port’s own code belongs, now names the port to use. An SCA that removes every bill it carries under a declaration of U asks whether the whole CSN was meant: whole-CSN deletions customs accepted say D. A passport number typed in a spreadsheet batch or an e-mailed draft is typed PPT, a gross weight in MTS is read against the containers at the precision it was written, the time a file reached ICEGATE is shown in IST, and a refusal that names no reason now says what happened to the eight on record: all went through in the end, one only after repeated identical refusals, so stop after a second identical reply and ask the ICEGATE helpdesk.
7 OctFiling
Shipping line filing: a CSN quoted under the wrong indicator is fixed in one press, and fewer false stops
When an SAA adds a line quoting a CSN’s CIN, SCMTR now asks customs’ record what that CIN is: a straight CSN’s own PCIN is quoted by an S line, a consolidation’s MCIN by a C line, and Make this line S (or C) sets it. A container weight written as 4816.280000000001 by the software that made the file is no longer called too long, a box changed on an updated line but not restated on the vessel list is a note rather than an error, and an item row left on a removed line is pointed out whatever its flag.
6 OctAfter filing
The pending split-ups board shows where the splits are stuck, reads in pages, and looks for a bill at the neighbouring customs location
Above the rows, “Where the splits are stuck” counts the pending bills so the culprits show: which line holds the most house bills and what share, how many bills customs’ record confirms stuck at the line, how many ships already have entry inward, the commonest cause, the busiest port, how long the cargo has waited, and the ships carrying most of it — tap a line, port, cause or finding to see its rows. The board reads 25 rows a page with every heading sortable and filters by port, line, cause and finding, and the view you set is in the page’s address, so a filtered page can be sent as a link. And a bill listed at a port customs holds nothing for is now looked for at the port’s neighbours: most bills the association listed at Chennai were on customs’ record at Kattupalli, where the ship had discharged, and the finding now says so and opens the lookup there.
6 OctFiling
The port of receipt follows a corrected destination in the full form, and the port list offers the station filings use first
Change a bill’s destination in the full form and its next port of unlading and port of receipt move with it, as they already did in the guided steps — a receipt port left at the old station was how a CSN went to customs naming one Dadri station while the line’s manifest named another. Typing a place with several customs stations, such as “dadri”, now offers the station most filings carry first (ICD Dadri, INDER6) instead of the first by alphabet. And a CSN whose port of receipt is another Indian station than its next port of unlading gets an amber note: CBIC defines the port of receipt as the port of destination on the bill of lading, so use the station the shipping line’s manifest names in both. Amber, not red — customs accepted that filing.
6 OctPlatform
The pending console split-ups board: the consolidators’ register, public, read against customs’ record daily
Every master bill whose house bills the shipping line has not yet split onto its manifest, as a board at scmtr.io/pending-splits — read by anyone, downloadable as Excel or PDF, with each row added and changed only by the organisation that listed it. Each row carries Our findings, read from customs’ public record every day: still pending when the only CSN on the bill is a straight one the manifest quotes, linked on customs’ record when a CSN with the house bills is there and every house bill has its IGM line. A finding, never a verdict: a row is marked resolved only by its owner or staff. Under it, SCMTR.io’s reading in plain words. The association’s own sheet was copied in to start it. It is a header pill on both headers; “Ask a question” left the header rows the same day — the corner launcher at the foot of every page is the one way in.
6 OctVessels
More calls on the cut-off board — and calls a line is still confirming shown as such
The board now asks customs about every ship a CSN, a manifest, an uploaded file or a published list has named in the last month, so more of the calls you file for are on it. A call a line has sent but not yet confirmed shows as “Being confirmed by the line”, with its ship and port only and no time, until the line confirms it. Three more agents’ calls now show under their own lines rather than Line not known, and a shipping line can show its own logo beside its calls by uploading it on its desk. Every cut-off stays indicative: confirm it with the shipping line.
6 OctVessels
The cut-off board says plainly when a cut-off is not known — and what to do
Most calls on the board have no cut-off the line has published — ships due tomorrow among them — and the board now says so plainly. Its two tabs are Cut-off known and Cut-off not known, and every call without one says what to do: “File now — ask the line” for a ship due within three days (its last foreign port is probably behind it), “File early — ask the line” otherwise, with customs’ rule or the line’s own beneath. The board opens on whichever tab holds what you searched for, so a call it holds is never answered “no match”, and it says how many calls match and where. The default view warns when ships due within three days have no known cut-off. A line whose calls all lack one opens on them, its card says “cut-off not known”, and the lines with no call on the board right now are named under the grid. On your CSN list, a CSN whose cut-off is not known says so with what to do — a CSN whose call is on the board links that call, and its reminder links it too. The board now also holds every upcoming call customs’ record lists for the ships SCMTR.io knows — marked “From customs’ record”, under its line where its agent or the ship’s other calls name one, else under Line not known — so a ship’s Cochin call is there beside its Nhava Sheva one; and VCN search says the same beside each call still to come. A closed cut-off now stays on the board until three days after its ship’s arrival. Every cut-off stays indicative: confirm it with the shipping line.
6 OctVessels
CSN cut-offs: your line’s own rule on a CSN, and Visakhapatnam’s calls
A CSN whose call the board does not hold now shows the published rule of the line it names — when that line wants the CSN, in its own words and linked — and a house-bill deadline is called one, never a CSN cut-off. The reminder for an unsent CSN uses the CSN’s own line, never another line’s cut-off on the same call. Calls at Visakhapatnam are read from the container terminal’s daily berthing report, and the lists lines and ports publish are now read twice a day, morning and afternoon. Every cut-off stays indicative: confirm it with the shipping line.
6 OctSharing
BL tracking and cut-off links say what they found in WhatsApp
A BL tracking link copied from the browser now previews as a card naming the bill, with the shipping line’s arrival date when the bill names its line and that line’s answer is fresh. A cut-off board link previews as the call it finds, or the soonest cut-offs of one ship, line or port; a line’s own page shows its name and its open cut-offs. Share on the board sends them as text with the link.
6 OctChecks
Tonnes and kilograms read as one weight wherever they meet, and a passport number spotted
A bill in MTS no longer fills its container with the same figure in kilograms, in the guided steps or from a bill sent by e-mail, and the house bill’s box picker adds the boxes up against the bill in kilograms. “Does customs hold this version?” and the line’s SAM comparison read 10.29 MTS and 10,290 KGS as the same weight. A code shaped like a passport number is offered the type PPT. And a file that is not valid JSON says where it breaks when it comes by e-mail or through a line’s share link too.
6 OctChecks
A passport number is typed PPT, and a broken file says which line to fix
A party identified by passport number takes the code type PPT, which customs accepts though no guide lists it; any other type on the exporter (PSP, say) is stopped before you sign, since customs refuses it as 039, and pointed out on the consignee or notify party. An export’s transit lines are no longer asked for a transhipper. And a file that is not valid JSON now says which line is missing its comma, or that a tab was pasted into a value.
6 OctFiling
Shipping line filing: three more mistakes in amendment files named, and an old SAM with a new rotation spotted
A vessel container list written under a line’s field names (eqmtId where the list has equipmentId) is now one error with a one-press fix that renames the fields; before, it showed as two dozen scattered notes and the container total SCMTR asked for counted three boxes twice. A line removed as if it quoted nothing, while customs holds it quoting a PCIN or MCIN, is pointed out: customs refused a removal without its CIN as 724. An amendment type the guide does not list (A) is pointed out and read as an addition. And when you open a SAM or SDM, three of its bills are asked of customs’ record, so a file that is an earlier call’s manifest with its rotation changed is pointed out. Empties on no line are now one note.
5 OctVessels
CSN cut-offs: the lines’ India-wide rules, more calls, and the board in the app’s header
Where Maersk or CMA CGM has given no cut-off for a call, the board now shows one estimated from the line’s own published India-wide rule — the CSN at least 72 hours before arrival — marked estimated wherever it appears, and never later than the rule. Hapag-Lloyd’s rule and customs’ own, which count from the ship leaving its last foreign port, are quoted rather than dated. Calls at APM Terminals Mumbai (GTI) are read from JNPA’s reports too. The cut-off board is in the header of the app and of the site. Every cut-off stays indicative: confirm it with the shipping line.
5 OctSharing
A ship’s VCNs in the WhatsApp preview
A VCN search link sent on WhatsApp now shows a card naming the ship, its VCNs and their arrival dates, with the day of customs’ list it shows — when exactly one ship matches and customs’ answer is recent; otherwise it stays the plain search card. Each ship on the result also has Share, which sends the VCNs as text you can copy, with the link.
5 OctVessels
The CSN cut-off board
scmtr.io/cutoffs gathers the CSN cut-offs shipping lines publish — from advisories a line e-mails to lines@scmtr.io from its own verified domain, and from lists lines and ports publish, read once a day. Each vessel call has one page at a short address, with the cut-off and the time left in India time, the customs VCN, rotation and VIA to copy, a calendar reminder and a WhatsApp message that names the date. A cut-off worked out from a line’s published rule is marked estimated. Every CSN now shows its call’s cut-off where the board has one, and the reminder for an unsent CSN uses it. Every cut-off is indicative: confirm it with the shipping line, whose advisory is the only authority.
5 OctAfter filing
Arrival from the line’s own tracking, with a countdown
A filed import’s arrival is asked of the shipping line’s own tracking every few hours for lines whose tracking can be read, and the CSN list counts the days to it in India time, saying whose day it is — the line’s, your team’s or customs’. When the line moves the day, the team is told. A VCN whose arrival is far from the cargo’s is pointed out.
5 OctFiling
A bill printing several HS codes is drafted as one item, and opens in the guided steps
A bill of lading that prints two or more HS codes used to be drafted from your e-mail as one item for each code, with no package count on any of them — every item to fix by hand, and a draft the guided steps could not open. It is now drafted the way such a bill is filed: one item with the first HS code, the bill’s whole package count and a description of the goods — the bill’s own goods description where its lines read differently — and the other codes listed in a note. A draft that already has several items on a bill can go to the guided steps too: Switch to guided steps shows, bill by bill, what combining them would change, and does it only when you say so.
5 OctFiling
Bills by e-mail: up to 40 bills, and a draft that needs less fixing
One e-mail may now carry 40 bill PDFs, up from 12 — a master with twelve or sixteen house bills used to lose the files past the twelfth. The master bill is found in a subject that lists it ahead of its house bills, and a CFS code written on its own line beside the name is read, so both are asked less often. The ship’s VCN is the call of this voyage, not an earlier call customs still lists — left blank where two calls fit — and a ship printed as “MV. NAME” is found. A PDF you send a second time is not read a second time. A party’s state comes from its own box or its city rather than from an old record, “MUMBAI - 51” is written as PIN 400051, and a shipper abroad is no longer placed in India by a six-digit postcode. An HS code a bill prints again without a count is not a second item, “CTN (OUTER)” is cartons, and house bills are listed in the order of their numbers. A master bill dated in figures only, or not dated at all, takes the date its house bills allow and is marked to check.
5 OctChecks
An SAA removing a line is checked down to its house bills
When an SAA removes a whole line, every house bill under it and each house bill’s containers are now checked against what customs holds, not only the master’s containers. One that customs no longer holds is an error, with one press to leave it out of the SAA. The check asks nothing more of ICEGATE than it already did. For a shipping line, a line quoting one of a forwarder’s house bill PCINs, or a PCIN that no CSN under its bill carries, gets a warning: customs refused two lines quoting a house PCIN from another bill 360 on 3 October, whichever PAN they named as consolidator. In an SCA, a new row is numbered after every number customs already holds, and an opened file whose vessel mode was not sea says so when it is set to 1.
3 OctChecks
Fewer stops for what customs accepts, and two new cross-checks
A house bill whose items add up to a different package count from the bill is now a warning on an import rather than a stop — customs has accepted such bills — and stays an error on an export, where it refuses them (709). A third decimal on a container weight no longer draws a note. The vessel’s mode of transport is always sea and is filled in for you. For a shipping line, a line quoting a CSN’s MCIN or PCIN that names someone other than that CSN’s filer as consolidator is an error (360). Checking a CSN or a manifest line against the bill of lading PDF now also compares each container’s size code with the box the bill prints (“1X40’OT”) and pauses on a difference — never a stop. A checklist saved as PDF is named after its master bill.
3 OctFiling
An SCA is checked against what customs holds before it is sent
An amendment that updates or deletes a row your accepted CSN never had — a port of call, a container, an item or a house bill — is now stopped before it is sent, with one press to mark the row added (S): customs refused such an SCA 750 on 3 October. What customs holds is read from every accepted version of the CSN here. If an amendment made through other software added the row, press Customs holds it beside that row: it goes on your word, row by row, and your word is kept with the filing. An amendment now keeps every number customs holds and numbers only a new row after the highest; a new amendment made from an accepted one leaves out the rows that one deleted. A new CSN whose master bill is referenced only (R) but declared Y with a PCIN is stopped, as customs refused it 115.
3 OctChecks
SAA: a removed line goes whole, and three more refusals are read
Removing a line in an SAA built here now sends the whole line — every container, route leg and document marked D — after customs answered a bare removal with 242 on its legs and 300. An SAA whose line or container total counts only its own rows while it changes a line or box numbered far above them is stopped, as customs refused one 89 and 90; a total that is merely low is a warning. A container size that differs from the CSN the line quotes is now an error for the shipping line (398) and stays a warning on the forwarder’s side. Changing the CSN, PCIN or MCIN a line quotes by an update is flagged with what customs checks the new one against.
3 OctChecks
A box kept aboard as an empty no longer stops an SAA
When an SAA removes a line, a container no other line carries is named as one that would stay on the vessel’s list with no line, and the file could not be sent until it was marked removed. An empty being repositioned can rightly stay there, so the check now offers a second answer beside Mark it removed (D): Keep it aboard as an empty, which gives that row on the vessel’s list amendment type U and load status EMP. The stop then becomes a warning, and the container total keeps the box. Filling in a form from your address book, a bill of lading or ICEGATE now also tells you which fields were longer than customs allows and were shortened.
3 OctChecks
Everything filled in for you now fits the field it goes into
A value the platform writes for you — from a bill of lading read off a PDF or pasted in, from a spreadsheet batch, from your address book or item templates, from customs’ own record, or from the bills you e-mail — is now held to the field it lands in before it is written: plain text in the field’s own characters, cut at a word to the length customs allows — said so in a draft, a spreadsheet batch or an address-book edit — with codes, numbers and bill numbers left whole. A weight in a spreadsheet written in another unit than its row’s, or with a decimal comma, is left for you to correct rather than read wrongly. Until now a 320-character goods description or an 80-character street from a PDF went in whole and came back red for you to retype. Five fields customs gives a length to were never checked at all (the additional declaration’s and supporting documents’ text and numbers) and are now; a number with more digits or decimals than its MIG format, and a manifest code outside the guide’s list, get an amber note. On the manifest side, the bulk-cargo form, a line built from a CSN, the fill-in dialog and the master’s name remembered for a ship are held to the manifest’s own lengths, and the voyage number and header fields gained the lengths ICEGATE’s own file rules state. A spreadsheet saved by Excel on Windows is read in its own encoding instead of turning every accented letter into an unreadable character.
3 OctFiling
Bills by e-mail: the line’s agent, the size codes and "to order" bills filled in
The checklist drafted from your e-mailed bills now writes the shipping line’s agent as the consolidator PAN and the container agent on every box — from your own accepted filings for that line at that port, or from what other filers on SCMTR filed for the same line’s bills there (a line agent’s PAN only, never anyone’s party) — and your own PAN as the container agent on a straight bill. Each container’s size code is read from whichever bill prints it fullest and written in the code your own filings use; the mode of transport is sea without asking; a count written in words ("ONE CONTAINER", "SAY TWENTY-EIGHT CARTONS") is read as the number, and a total box that counts containers never gives the package kind. A bill consigned "to order" or to a bank takes its first notify party in India as the consignee and the next as the notify party — the warehouse rather than the registered office when the same company is listed twice, never a bank — and a form’s pre-printed "CONSIGNEE (TO ORDER)" heading above a real company and address no longer makes a bill "to order". A party you have filed before takes the codes you filed it under, with its name and address as the bill prints them. A notify party abroad gives way to the consignee, the goods description is the goods without the carrier’s clauses and the paperwork, a container line in the marks column is not a mark, and a Korean bill’s "KOREA" and a city the parser missed are read. Measured over the bills customs accepted a CSN for: values written wrong fell from 5.8% to 1.6% on the bills and from 4.4% to 2.9% on whole filings, and what the first production checklists had to have typed by hand is now filled in and marked to check.
3 OctPlatform
Every walkthrough film has its own page
Each of our walkthrough films now has a page at scmtr.io/films, with the film, what it shows and the reference pages beside it, so a search for the task finds the film here. The films play in YouTube’s privacy-enhanced player, and only on those pages; the privacy policy says what that player does.
3 OctChecks
A house bill carrying its own master B/L number is flagged
A filer typed the master bill’s number into a house bill and nothing said so. None of the accepted house bills we hold does that, so the CSN check now points it out as a warning. It does not stop the filing.
2 OctFiling
E-mail your bills of lading and get the checklist back
Send a master bill of lading and its house bills as PDFs to the bills address (shown in Settings under Bills by e-mail), and SCMTR reads them and e-mails you the Sea Cargo Manifest Checklist drafted from them. Where the bills leave out something only you know — which CFS the boxes go to, a consignee’s PAN or GSTIN, a missing master — one short page asks you, with no sign-in, and the checklist follows the moment you answer; what your e-mail already says (the CFS, "DPD", a PAN) is read first and never asked twice. Every reply answers under your own subject in one conversation. A person in your organisation then approves the checklist in SCMTR and the draft CSN opens for the usual check, sign and send. Your admin switches it on per person under Settings → Team.
2 OctFiling
Removing a line in an SAA: its containers come off the vessel list too, and the container total says so
When an SAA removes a line, each container that line held and no other line carries is removed from the vessel’s container list too, as every real SAA on file does. SCMTR’s count of customs’ manifest now knows which lines carry each box, so it names a box that would be left on the vessel with no line, offers Mark it removed (D) when its row is in the file with no amendment type, and asks for the container total that counts it out. Before, the total it asked for kept the box on the list. A box left out of the vessel list is no longer reported as missing from it (279).
2 OctAfter filing
The EGM reply after a departure manifest is read: which shipping bills made the EGM and which did not
After an SDN, ICEGATE mails a flat file with one row per shipping bill and a letter beside it. Drop that file on Check your SCMTR JSON (it takes the .out as it comes) and SCMTR lists the bills customs put on the EGM and the ones it left off, laid over the lines of the SDM it answers. On the one departure we have seen, every bill marked Q was still waiting for stuffing on customs’ record. The SDN itself is now checked against its SDM, as an entry inward is against its SAM.
2 OctFiling
Fetch from ICEGATE no longer reads a shipping bill’s weight in tonnes as kilograms
ICEGATE’s shipping bill enquiry gives the gross weight in the bill’s own unit and does not say which, and some bills are in tonnes. Fetch from ICEGATE used to fill it as kilograms. It now shows customs’ figure as given, matches it to your weight in either unit, and when they differ offers both readings for you to choose, never writing one you did not tick. It also says when a shipping bill is still waiting for stuffing.
2 OctChecks
The seal check names 701 as well as 703
A container given different seal numbers on the bills that name it can come back refused 701, “Multiple SealNo for Equipment-Id”, as well as 703, “BL and HBL SealNo Does Not Match”. The check that stops it before you file now names both, so a refusal carrying either is easy to match to it.
2 OctPlatform
Invited to a colleague’s organisation while you have your own? Now you can accept
An invitation sent to someone who already had an organisation — usually the one their own sign-up made — used to sit unseen until it expired. Now a line under the header says who invited you, and the invitations page says what accepting does before you press: you leave your current organisation, or, if you are its only member, it is deleted with everything in it, irreversibly, after you tick that you understand and type the word. The only admin of a team is told to hand over first. Declining tells the inviter.
2 OctChecks
Choose a CSN and its ACK together, and both open as one
On Check your SCMTR JSON, choosing the _DEC and the _ACK in one go used to be refused with “choose one file at a time”, and the SCMTR JSON upload box on CSN filing took one file only. Now both take the two together: the ACK opens with the CSN paired onto it, whichever order you chose them in — the same page, verdict and checklist as dropping the ACK first and the CSN into its box. An ACK that answers a different CSN is still refused, with the ACK left open.
2 OctFiling
A removed line names the CIN it quotes, and a line quoting a CSN by number names your own PAN
A Kolkata SAA of 1 October was refused 724 “CIN No Should be Provided in Prev-Decln of SAA/IM-SCA” for removing a line that quotes a PCIN by its bill reference alone. Build amendment now writes the prior reference on a removed line that declares an earlier declaration, the checks stop a line quoting a CIN that lacks it, and the reply story reads 724. And a line quoting a forwarder’s CSN by number and date — the shape used when no MCIN is anywhere — names the manifest’s own filer as consolidator, as every such line customs holds does (70 of 70 read against its record); Add a line from a CSN writes it so, and the checks point out one naming anyone else.
2 OctPlatform
What customs and the ports published since August, in the knowledge base
The rollout article now carries each port’s notice ending supplementary IGM/EGM (Tuticorin from 13 August), the ITP and ST messages live from 21 August, JNCH’s fixed list of papers for an officer-approved amendment of empty containers or foreign transhipment cargo (Public Notice 115/2026), and Mundra adopting JNCH’s procedures. A codeless CSN refusal that repeats on resend is no longer read as load: the article says to stop sending it unchanged and read the file.
1 OctChecks
A weight in tonnes is read as tonnes, and another port’s VCN is pointed out
A gross weight in MTS is now compared with your containers’ kilograms as tonnes, and with customs’ record — which shows an export CSN’s weight in KGS — as the same weight, so 168.3 MTS no longer reads as a difference. A gross weight under MTS that is really the containers’ kilograms is pointed out, and so is a VCN issued at another port than the one you file at. And a refusal coded 700, or naming no reason, now says what happened to such refusals on record: nearly every one was accepted when sent again, most the same day.
1 OctPlatform
Every date and time is shown in Indian time, marked IST
Dates and times across SCMTR — on the web, in e-mails and in the mobile app — are now always Indian Standard Time, and a time is marked IST, wherever your computer or phone is set. Before, a reply customs stamped at 02:00 IST could show on the day before when read from a computer set to another zone, and a few sentences quoted times in UTC.
1 OctChecks
A box two lines share may be FCL on both, and a drop-and-re-add is read as one change
Customs accepted a manifest where two lines share a box and both lines, and the vessel’s list, call it FCL. The check now flags a shared box only when its lines disagree, or when the vessel’s list says what none of them do. An SAA that drops a line and adds its bill back under a new number is no longer told the bill is on two lines or that the new line is above the total. When an SAA’s own bills are no longer on customs’ record, Count what customs holds finds the manifest from a recent count of it where there is one, rather than asking you to type a bill, and when it does ask, it says which of your bills customs no longer holds.

September 2026

30 SeptFiling
A line from a CSN finds the MCIN on customs’ record when the forwarder’s CSN has none
A forwarder’s CSN that only refers to the master bill is given PCINs for its house bills and no MCIN; the MCIN belongs to the other CSN on the bill, the one that declares the master itself, and that is what an accepted line quotes. “Add a line from a CSN” now asks customs’ public record for it and quotes it, naming the CSN it came from. The containers it adds follow the manifest: the bond flag starts as the one every box already carries, and the final destination is written only where the manifest’s other boxes have one. An item with no description of its own is no longer flagged, and the note on a placeholder PAN says customs has accepted one — both from a SAM customs accepted, read with its reply.
30 SeptPlatform
A question asked of the assistant without signing in is now kept for 90 days, with nothing that identifies you
Until now a question typed into the assistant on the public site was answered and not kept; only a signed-in person’s was. From 30 September 2026 a visitor’s question is kept too, for 90 days, with its answer and the page it was asked from — and no name, e-mail address, IP address or cookie beside it — so we can see what the public pages fail to explain. The assistant says so under the box you type in, and the privacy policy sets it out. As before, please do not paste bill numbers, party names or a whole filing into the assistant; use the file check.
30 SeptChecks
Counting customs’ manifest keeps every detail of each line, and a count already made is ready at once
Count what customs holds now keeps everything customs’ public record gives for each line — the CIN it quotes and its own, the cargo type, every port, the transhipper, each house bill with its figures, and each container with its sequence, type, size, weight, status, agent and bond — and the line map shows all of it, with Copy this line. The panel also shows what ICEGATE records for the vessel call: VCN, IMO, voyage, terminal and inward date. When the same manifest has already been counted in the last week and customs still holds that version, your count is ready straight away; Count again walks it afresh. A count made earlier with fewer details is counted again when you open the file.
30 SeptChecks
A line declared C that names its CSN by MCIN is stopped again, with a one-press fix
Yesterday SCMTR stopped flagging a manifest line declared C (compare with a CSN) that names the CSN by its MCIN instead of its number and date. That was wrong: the SAM we read it from had been refused, 159 “Incorrect Cin Type in MC”, on exactly those nine lines, and accepted once they were filed again as Y with the same MCIN. Such a line is now red, with a button that sets it to Y; a reply carrying 159 says the same. An item with no description was flagged again as a warning — withdrawn on 30 September, when an accepted SAM was seen leaving it empty on 39 of 69 items. A box two added lines share is no longer said to weigh differently on the vessel’s list when its shares add up to the same figure.
29 SeptChecks
An SAA line that re-declares a bill a CSN already declares is stopped (error 753)
Customs refused an SAA with error 753, “Amd-MC-MBL Details Already Exists”, when it added a master bill as a fresh consolidated line with its own house bills while a forwarder’s CSN already declared that bill. When you open an SAA, SCMTR now asks customs’ record whether a CSN exists on each bill the SAA adds as a new line, and stops the file in that case: quote the CSN instead (consolidated with its MCIN, or straight with its PCIN) and leave out the line’s own house bills. This rests on one refusal, and a question customs could not answer is listed as not checked rather than passed.
29 SeptFiling
Country and PAN boxes take the first letter, Form III drops a default organisation name, and a missing HS code shows on the checklist
In the guided steps, the first letter typed into the shipper country or consolidator PAN box was lost, so it had to be typed twice; it no longer is. Form III prints “For” over the signature line when your organisation still has the name it was given at sign-up, instead of that name. And the printed checklist always shows the HS code row, marked missing — or missing on a named item — where an item has none.
29 SeptChecks
The check against the line’s SAM before sending is paced, and says which BLs it could not reach
Before Sign & upload, the check against what the shipping line filed now asks ICEGATE a few questions a second instead of all at once. A BL whose turn does not come before the check has to finish is shown as not checked yet — it never stops the upload — and the headline counts them, so a partial answer never reads as the whole CSN. Autosave on very large drafts also sends far less to the server.
29 SeptFiling
Add a line to an SAA from a CSN, quoted the way accepted lines quote it
Adding a line to an SAA from a CSN now quotes the CSN’s master MCIN or PCIN from its acknowledgement, as accepted lines do, and falls back to the CSN number and date only when neither is known. The line takes the CSN master’s parties, ports, transhipper, weights, items, containers and route, is stamped as an addition, and anything still missing is asked for in one form before it is added. The manifest’s line and container totals move with it.
29 SeptAfter filing
See when your file reached ICEGATE, and values the guide does not name
An acknowledgement now shows when the file it answers reached ICEGATE, read from its upload id. A CSN opened read-only lists, under “Also in the file”, values carried under names the filing guide does not use — such as the shipping bill number and date exporters write beside the PCIN, which customs accepts.
29 SeptChecks
Another party’s CSN on your master bill no longer locks your amendment — it warns of error 320
When another party’s CSN on the same master bill of lading had been accepted, the filing page said your CSN “can no longer be amended or deleted” and switched both off, on the strength of error 320 in customs’ list (“CSN is Linked to Other CSN — Amendment is Not Allowed”). No refusal carrying 320 has ever been seen, here or in a reply a filer has shown us, and ICES Advisory 38/2026 gives no reason to stop the amendment — so a check with nothing behind it was taking away the one route a filer had. It is now a warning: the amendment and the deletion stay available, on the filing page and on SCMTR JSON upload, and the page says customs may answer 320, in which case the correction goes to the shipping line and your jurisdictional customs officer. A brand-new CSN on such a bill is still stopped, and the shipping line’s manifest works as before (ICES Advisory 37/2026: the amendment stays open, a deletion is the officer’s).
29 SeptPlatform
“Ask a question” in the header, and a feedback button that no longer looks like a chat
The SCMTR Assistant now has its own button at the top of every page, on the public site and in the app, and the first entry of the phone menu (taken out again on 6 October 2026 to make room for the pending split-ups pill; the corner launcher stays). The corner button says “Ask a question” on every screen, phones included, in brighter blue. Feedback has a megaphone instead of a speech bubble, so the two are no longer mistaken for each other.
29 SeptChecks
An SAA whose declaration says S instead of U is stopped; two false warnings on SAMs are gone
The declaration block of an SAA or SDA says what the amendment does to the manifest as a whole, and the guide allows only U or D there — S belongs on the lines and containers it adds. The one sender on record writing S had both its SAAs refused with no error code at all, so SCMTR now stops that file and says to set it to U. (A line quoting its CSN by MCIN alone stopped being flagged here too, on a SAM read as accepted — withdrawn the next day: that SAM had been refused.)
29 SeptChecks
An IMO number with the ship’s MMSI beside it is caught, with the number to keep
Ship-tracking sites print a ship’s IMO and MMSI as a pair, and a CSN whose IMO field carried both was refused with error 016, “Invalid Transport Means No/IMO Code”. The field already stopped such a value; it now names the IMO to keep and says the nine-digit number is the MMSI. A 016 on an acknowledgement comes with its own fix steps, which also say that a right IMO can be refused 016 and accepted later with the same IMO — a send with the IMO alone was refused beside it, and the same filing accepted seven hours on — and, with your CSN beside the ACK, which of the two your file shows. The export fill from documents also reads more bills of lading correctly, writes customs’ gross weight in the unit your filing already uses, and shows customs’ answer only while the shipping bill on screen is the one it answers.
29 SeptFiling
Fill an export from its documents: the B/L, then customs’ record of the shipping bill
The bill of lading step of an export now opens with “Fill this export from your documents”. Drop the B/L’s PDF and it fills the bill, the parties, the containers with their seals and the goods, and keeps the shipping bill number and date the goods description names. Then “Fetch from ICEGATE” asks customs’ public shipping-bill enquiry and shows what customs holds: the PCIN and its date, whether the let export order is given, the packages and gross weight, the port of discharge and the containers. One press fills what is empty; a field you already filled that customs’ record disagrees with is shown beside it and changed only if you tick it. What is still left to fill is listed last. A PCIN still never comes from a document.
29 SeptPlatform
Large filings save and open faster
A draft with hundreds of bills saves only what changed since the last save, not the whole filing each time, and its sidebar draws only the rows on screen. A file dropped on the inspector is not sent again for each check, a reload reopens it, and on a file with hundreds of master bills a jump to a problem lands on its bill wherever it is in the list. Opening a filing reads its current version only.
29 SeptChecks
Counting customs’ manifest: every line on the map, under the line’s PAN too
Count what customs holds now keeps each line’s summary for the line map whoever counts it — an agent filing under the shipping line’s PAN included — and the map colours the lines that quote no CSN, the exception, while the count runs. A count finds its way past a run of unused line numbers instead of stopping short, and checks the few numbers out of use again before trusting a line total. An SAA whose totals count only its own rows is now a warning rather than an error, because a line dropped and re-added in two SAAs files exactly that; a template’s placeholder code where a PAN belongs is an error.
29 SeptChecks
Check with customs asks about every bill, and remembers what customs confirmed
Check with customs no longer stops at sixty master bills: it asks about every bill in the file, stops at the first three that need your attention so you can fix those first, and stops at once if customs holds none of the first six. Every bill customs confirmed is remembered for twelve hours, so after a fix only what changed is asked again. The free file check without an account now takes a CSN up to 3 MB, and an ACK dropped onto a filing can be up to 3 MB too.
29 SeptChecks
A shipping line’s export CSN for a whole vessel is checked, not turned away
SCMTR JSON upload now checks a CSN up to 3 MB once you are signed in — a line’s SCX for every bill on a ship runs past 2 MB — where it used to stop at 1 MB and send the file to the manifest screen. The free check without an account still takes 1 MB and sends a larger CSN to sign in. A file just under 1 MB no longer fails with “something went wrong on our side”. A CSN that size can be signed and sent from here too, and a file whose spacing makes it too large to carry is refused with its size instead of an error. Foreign cargo transhipped out on an SCX (cargo type TR, movement FT, a consignor abroad with no code) is no longer flagged: customs accepted it. A deletion that states zero lines is no longer stopped. And a CSN advice on a large file names the bills it did not ask customs about.
28 SeptFiling
The port a CSN is reported at, filled in when Settings leave it blank
If you file at many ports and keep the receiver ID blank in Settings, typing the port of reporting now fills the receiver ID, and with both blank the route’s first port of entry fills both — in the guided steps and the full form. All three name the same port on every accepted CSN on file. A port you type yourself is never replaced. For cargo delivered to an ICD or SEZ, the port of receipt and the next port now follow the destination when you correct it, as long as you have not set them to something else.
28 SeptFiling
More filings on a page, and a page that says when SCMTR has been updated
The CSN filing list shows 20, 50, 100 or 300 filings a page. The address book now fills in the blank details of a party it already holds from a file you download, never changing what an entry already says. And if SCMTR is updated while a page is open, a bar at the foot says so and offers Reload, instead of buttons that quietly stop working.
28 SeptVessels
When the cargo reaches India, from the master bill of lading
Put a master bill into BL tracking and press Find the arrival, or open the CSN: the Arrival card shows the day the ship is due at the Indian port and its route. For SITC, HMM, ONE, MSC, COSCO, Evergreen, Yang Ming, KMTC, Sinokor and Cordelia the date is read from the shipping line’s own tracking; for other lines the card opens their tracking and your team can add the date it shows, marked as yours. Send on WhatsApp writes a short update with the date, the ship and a link.
28 SeptAfter filing
The SAA checks are a pre-check: what would change the manifest by mistake is an error
On an arrival manifest whose count customs’ current version confirms, a container total below the count, a container added that customs’ lines already name, a bill added that customs already holds from your submitter, and a line added under a number your own manifest already uses are now errors to fix before sending — each is either refused by customs or a change you did not mean; a container total above the count stays a warning. And point at a line on the count’s map to read it: its master bill, cargo, house bills and containers, for a manifest filed under your own organisation’s PAN.
27 SeptAfter filing
Open an SAA and see at once what customs would refuse
The top of the shipping line filing page now says whether the file can be sent: the errors customs refuses, each with how to fix it, and a copy or WhatsApp share of the fixes for whoever made the file. Opening an SAA asks customs’ public record about every bill it changes or adds, and counts the manifest customs holds by itself, with the count’s progress shown as it goes. A wrong line total, a line added under a number customs’ confirmed reply shows in use and a line addressed under the wrong number are errors; a container total below the count and a container or bill added a second time are warnings, until customs is seen refusing them. If a check could not run — ICEGATE did not answer, or the count needs a bill — the page says so instead of showing all clear.
27 SeptPlatform
Faster pages when you are signed in, and on large filings
Your filings, vessel calls and a filing’s own page open markedly faster, the shipping line filing page and the file check load less before you drop a file, and a large consolidation or manifest is checked with less work on every keystroke. The alerts bell counts only what you have not read, and “Mark all read” now marks every alert, not the first thousand.
27 SeptPlatform
The activity log is kept for twelve months, and its record of your filings with the filings
The record of who did what in your organisation is kept for twelve months and then deleted, as the privacy policy now says, except its record of your filings: who sent each one, what customs answered, every read of a kept file and every support session. That part is kept as long as the filings are, which is as long as customs record-keeping requires.
27 SeptPlatform
See every browser and phone signed in to your account, and sign any of them out
Settings → Sign-ins, also in the account menu, lists where you are signed in: the browser or app, when it signed in, the IP address it came from and roughly when it was last used. Sign one out, or every one but this browser. When your account is signed in to from a device it has not used before, you get one e-mail saying so.
27 SeptPlatform
Answers to filers’ questions, each at its own link
A question from a filers’ group is answered once, checked by our staff and published under /answers, so the same answer can be shared as a link that previews in WhatsApp as the question itself. Each answer lists the reference pages it rests on, and reference pages list the questions asked about them.
27 SeptFiling
The master’s FCL or LCL stays as you set it
A container’s status on the master bill is FCL until you change it on the master. A house bill no longer turns it LCL, and taking the last house bill off a container no longer blanks it. Where a container is on one house bill and the two disagree, both say so in amber, and one click takes the house bill’s status across.
27 SeptChecks
A reminder when you leave blank what almost every accepted filing gives
A notified party in India with no PAN, a bill with no gross weight, an item with no package count, a container with no seal, weight or agent code, and a few more: the message guide calls them optional, but almost every CSN and manifest customs accepted gives them. Each now gets an amber reminder at the field. None of them blocks signing, because customs has accepted filings without them.
27 SeptAfter filing
Count the manifest customs holds before your SAA goes, with no ICEGATE login
In the Checks tab, Count what customs holds reads ICEGATE’s public record of your vessel call line by line: every line customs holds now and the containers on them. Only a manifest ICEGATE names your file’s own submitter on is counted, and only line and container numbers are kept. Your SAA’s line and container totals, and the line numbers it adds or changes, are then checked against that count, as warnings until a count has been matched against a total customs accepted or refused. If customs holds a newer version, you are asked to count again.
27 SeptAfter filing
A refused SAA still tells the next one how many lines customs holds
When the only reply here is customs’ refusal of your amendment, its lines, less the ones that amendment added, check your line total and addresses. Reopen the very SAA customs refused and the totals it was refused for (89, 90) are flagged until they change. Both are warnings: a refused reply cannot say for certain what customs holds now.
27 SeptVessels
A container two lines share is LCL on the SAM, as every manifest on record files it
A SAM built here follows the lines for a box two of them share, the Checks tab notes a shared box that is not LCL (a warning, no refusal seen), and on an export a box two of your shipping bills share is suggested LCL. You can still change it.
27 SeptFiling
Paste a party and the city, state, PIN and country land in their own fields
Foreign parties and bills with no GSTIN included: the end of the address is read for the country, PIN or ZIP, state and city, and the preview says where each value came from. Paste now works on the full form too.
27 SeptFiling
Parties, vessel and items are remembered when you download a filing or customs accepts it
The address book used to learn only from filings sent from here. It now learns from a filing you download to file on the portal, and from one customs accepts, so the next filing offers the same consignee, vessel and items in one pick.
27 SeptChecks
A problem in a filled field is shown at once, and the package type takes letters only
A pasted, picked or reopened value no longer sits under its field in grey until you touch it; a field you are still typing in waits until you leave it. The package type takes letters only as you type, and a digit in a file’s package type is noted as a warning.
27 SeptAfter filing
Your filing says when customs’ record shows the vessel granted entry inward
The inward date on the line’s manifest record is the one public sign that entry inward was granted. When it appears, the filing says so, and its amendment note names both published positions: Advisory 37/2026’s officer approval, and 373/374.
27 SeptPlatform
A signer opens a preparer’s draft, and Sign & upload asks whether you may send first
With only signers sending, a signer opens a colleague’s draft from the filing page, checks it and sends it. Sign & upload says whether you may send before it asks for the DSC Signer, a refusal names only people who can act, invitations say Admin and Member, and notices stay until you have read them.
27 SeptFiling
Correcting a draft clears the spreadsheet import’s hold on it
A draft held by a note from a CSN spreadsheet import is released once the value the note objected to has been corrected, instead of staying held until the batch is re-imported.
27 SeptChecks
BL tracking and the free check say SDM and sailing for an export
An export CSN is matched with the line’s departure manifest, so BL tracking and the free check now say SDM and sailing where they said SAM and arrival, and the check says how many of a file’s master B/Ls customs holds nothing on yet.
27 SeptPlatform
26 more walkthrough films and a new chapter in the SCMTR guide
Short films for the address book, a vessel’s CSNs from one spreadsheet, Form III, BL tracking, amending after entry inward, the line sharing its SAM and more, each linked from the help page it shows, and a chapter on the line’s SAM before either side files.
26 SeptAfter filing
An amendment is checked against the manifest customs holds before it is sent
An SAA or SDA cannot say what customs holds now, so a wrong line or container total (90, 89), an added box numbered inside customs’ list (394) or a line updated under a number customs does not hold (306, 749) used to be found only by the refusal. Once an accepted reply for the vessel call has been dropped on Shipping line filing, the newest one is read as customs’ record: the Checks tab, Build amendment and Sign & upload check the amendment against it, each total and the added numbers correctable in one press, and the upload is refused while a total or an added number disagrees with a manifest customs accepted as filed. Against a reply to an earlier amendment the totals are amber, since such a reply may still list a line that amendment deleted and no accepted deleting amendment has yet shown either way; a line addressed under a number the record does not hold is amber too, as only the container under such a line has been refused. ICEGATE’s public record is asked which version customs holds; if a later one exists, or it cannot be read, the checks turn amber and say so.
26 SeptChecks
An export with a transhipment bond and no transhipper is told to drop the bond
An export CSN naming a transhipment bond on a line with no transhipper PAN used to draw “Transhipper code is normally required” on every such line — the wrong field, since an export needs no transhipper and none of the exports customs has accepted carries one. The note now says so and gives the two ways out: remove the bond, or give the transhipper’s PAN beside it. Amber, as before.
26 SeptChecks
The free check says what it found, links each bill to BL tracking, and says what a signed file holds
Without signing in, scmtr.io/check now names each kind of finding it holds back and in how many places — which line each is on, and the fix, open once you sign in. Under a checked CSN each master bill links to BL tracking, so you can see whether customs has issued the CSN on it, export CSNs included, with no account. The signature panel opens on what a signed file does not hold — your DSC’s private key, which never leaves your token — and keeps the certificate’s serial number and thumbprint behind Certificate details. Wherever the page says the file is kept, it says how: privately, never sold or used to train AI, deleted whenever you ask.
26 SeptPlatform
Signing in is signing up, and a new account is welcomed rather than told the terms changed
The sign-in page now says why you are there — “Your checked file is waiting”, held for 30 minutes, when you came from the free check — and that the same buttons create a free account; there is no separate sign-up. An account new to SCMTR meets “Welcome — one step before you start”, with how files are treated and that your DSC stays on your own token, instead of being told that terms it never saw have changed. Filers who knew the earlier terms still see what changed.
26 SeptChecks
A CFS at the gateway port takes one leg or two, and the route no longer warns either way
The route step used to ask whether a destination whose code extends the port code was a berth or a CFS, and the knowledge base said a CFS needed a road leg into it or the filing was rejected. Measured over every accepted import CSN on hand — 229 bills whose destination is a CFS under the port the ship called at — 179 carry the sea leg alone and 50 add a road leg from the gateway, and customs accepted both at Nhava Sheva, Kolkata, Cochin and Mundra. The route now files the sea leg alone, says so in a plain note, and a road leg into the CFS is yours to add if your practice is to declare it.
26 SeptAfter filing
Form III says N.A. for a transhipment bill instead of waiting for an IGM line that never comes
A house bill moving on to a foreign port is never mapped onto an IGM line — on the one manifest measured, every bill landing here was numbered and none of the eighteen transhipment ones was — so the form told the filer to wait for a number that never comes and counted the bill as awaited. Such a bill now reads N.A. with the reason, on the sheet, the PDF and the e-mail, and leaves the awaited count. A number customs did give is always printed as it is.
26 SeptPlatform
Managers, signers and company e-mail addresses, set out under Settings → Team and Workspace
Roles stay Admin and Member. Anyone somebody reports to is now a manager, who sees and corrects their team’s filings; the reporting line is drawn on Settings → Team, and a leaver’s people are handed to someone else when they are removed. Settings → Workspace adds two optional rules: Only signers send — everyone prepares a filing, and only admins and the people marked Signer may press Sign & upload, told before any DSC is asked for — and Company e-mail addresses only, which refuses an invitation to any other address, with named exceptions, and never removes anyone already in.
26 SeptPlatform
A filing agent can file for client companies, and a company can change its agent whenever it likes
An organisation that files for other companies turns it on under Settings → Workspace and adds a client on Clients — by the PAN a company already on SCMTR files under (its admins are asked, and told only who is asking), or by setting up a company new to SCMTR. The client chooses Files only or Runs the account, whose ICEGATE ID the files carry, and an end date if it wants one. Its filings and its admins stay its own, and it can end or switch agents at any time without losing a filing. The agent’s people work in a client as its account lead and handlers, are named in its records by the agent’s name, never their e-mail, and never become its members. The header says which company you are filing for.
26 SeptPlatform
A tab left on one organisation can no longer act as another
If you work in two organisations in two tabs and switch in one, the other used to carry on as the new one — suggestions from the wrong address book, a manifest sent as the wrong company. Each tab now knows which organisation it was opened for, and a request from a tab that no longer matches is refused rather than followed: the tab says so and offers Keep working here or Reload. A draft opened from a link or a reloaded tab is refused unless the organisation you are in can see it.
26 SeptPlatform
The assistant says what it is reading, writes its answer as it goes, and lists the pages it used
An answer used to take five to seven seconds behind three dots. Now the assistant names the pages it is reading as soon as it has found them, the answer appears as it is written, and Sources under it lists only the pages it actually drew on — open one to read the whole thing. It is handed every page a question needs rather than pieces of one, so a question that straddles two pages is answered from both, and where two pages disagree it says which says what. An answer cut short keeps what arrived and says so.
26 SeptAfter filing
A refused amendment that comes back 89 and 90 tells you the line total — a count, not the highest number
A line’s SAA came back with 89 and 90, the voyage totals, and nothing on any line. Customs does not renumber a manifest when a line is deleted, so a manifest holding lines 1 to 627 without 456 has 626 lines, and declaring 627 is refused. A refused reply to an amendment lists the manifest customs holds together with the lines the amendment sent, one row each, so its rows less the lines the amendment deletes are the total: open the reply beside the manifest and the page says the total and sets it in one press. The container total is not in a refused reply; take it from the SAM customs accepted and every amendment accepted since.
26 SeptChecks
One rule for the control number after a 700, and four new answers in the knowledge base
Four pages disagreed on whether a filing refused with 700 goes back under a new control number; every page now says the same: a refusal in an acknowledgement, 700 included, frees its number; an accepted or still-unanswered send needs a new one, so an amendment always does; and when you cannot tell what became of a send, a new number is the safe choice. New sections answer whether a TG bond is mandatory for a CSN (an ICD yes, an SEZ and DPD no, a CFS by port), how an LCL house bill in a consol box is filed for an ICD through a gateway port, what IEB means on the registration form, and where to look when Continue stays dark on the master bill step.
26 SeptPlatform
A new version of the data processing agreement: the assistant finds its material in Mumbai
When you ask the assistant a question, or type a suggestion into the roadmap, the matching against our reference material now happens in Google’s Mumbai region instead of the United States, so that step stays in India. The answer is still written through Google’s global endpoint, as before. The privacy policy says so, and the data processing agreement now does too, as its version of 26 September 2026 — nothing else in it changed. If your organisation accepted the earlier version, Settings → Enterprise shows it as an earlier version until an Org Admin accepts this one.
26 SeptFiling
Sign & upload notes what customs already holds under your number or your PAN, without stopping you
Beside the checks that stop a duplicate, two notes now appear at Sign & upload and never block. One says the control number on this file was already used on this job date — by a filing sent from here, brought in from the portal or recorded as made elsewhere — and what came of it; customs does not process one control number twice on a job date, so the send may come back as already processed, and the note names the filing to open. The other says customs’ own record already lists a CSN accepted under your PAN on this master B/L, so a fresh CSN would be a second copy rather than the amendment you may mean. Each says what to look at; if you know better, you send as you are.
26 SeptAfter filing
A manifest reply recorded on the wrong send can be taken off it
A send gets one answer. When a reply was recorded on the wrong one of two sends of the same manifest — the same file sent twice from different logins, say — it used to sit there for good. An organisation admin can now remove the ACK from that send on the manifest page: the row reads as awaiting customs again and the reply can be recorded on the send it answers. The file you dropped stays in your files; only where it was placed changes.
26 SeptPlatform
Browsers are told exactly which scripts a page may run
Every page now carries a content security policy that allows only the scripts the site itself produced: a fresh one-time value for a page built for you as you open it, and the exact fingerprints of the built page for the public reading pages, which stay cached at the edge. A script slipped in by a browser extension, an advert or a tampered network is refused rather than run. Nothing changes in how the app looks or works.
26 SeptVessels
The terminal operator code is remembered from what customs accepted, not from what was uploaded
The berth’s operator code has no published list, and customs checks it against the VCN and refuses a mismatch with 13. It used to be remembered the moment ICEGATE took your manifest, so a code customs then refused was offered back on your next manifest at that port. It is now remembered when customs’ reply accepts the send, and a code a reply refuses with 13 is forgotten — record the reply on the send and the next manifest at that port offers the right one.
26 SeptChecks
You are told when another filer on SCMTR has already sent a CSN on your master B/L
As you type the bill number, and again at Sign & upload, the app says when another organisation using SCMTR has already sent a CSN on the same master B/L at the same port — how many, and whether customs has accepted theirs, never who. Two filings on one master are usually the line and the console agent, so it stops nothing; it is the moment to check what customs already holds on the bill, which the notice links to, before the later filing is the one refused.
26 SeptFiling
An export on the shipping line’s B/L, referenced only, is now a guided choice
The bill step of a CSN Exit offers a third shape beside the straight bill and the consolidation: the shipping line’s B/L referenced only, with one line per shipping bill. The B/L keeps just its number, the line’s PAN, its totals and its containers; each shipping bill line takes its PCIN, its parties and goods, and its own destination. It writes the shape customs accepted on 22 September — until now it could only be filed from the full form.
26 SeptChecks
The HS code search asks DGFT again for a code the list does not hold
When the full tariff went in on 25 September, chapters and headings came with it — and a code the list lacked then matched its chapter, which counted as an answer and stopped the live DGFT lookup for exactly the codes it exists for. Only the code itself or one beneath it counts as an answer now; the chapter is still shown for context, and DGFT is asked as before.
25 SeptChecks
Five values customs has refused are now caught before you sign
Reading every CSN kept here with its acknowledgement turned up five refusals the checker let through. Three now stop the send, each named by a customs reply: a UN number with a space around it (032), a master consignment flagged H (056) and a notified party coded as an IEC (045). Two are warnings, because customs’ public record holds accepted filings carrying the same value: an Indian state written in letters (139/143) and a container with no size (072).
25 SeptVessels
A nil SAM is told its placeholder row, and a SAM whose arrival is off customs’ record is flagged
A call that lands no cargo still declares one piece of equipment: the published model is a single placeholder row on the vessel list with the totals 0 lines and 1 equipment. A SAM with neither is flagged, and one press writes the row and the totals. The check also asks customs’ public record for the ship’s calls and flags a SAM whose expected arrival is on a different day from the one customs holds for its VCN — both amber, since no nil SAM with its outcome is on record here.
25 SeptChecks
The code lists were checked against real filings and their sources
Every coded value the filings on record carry was compared with the lists the form offers. The HS list is refilled from DGFT’s tariff (16,000 headings, up from 6,600), the UN dangerous-goods list is complete, sixteen customs locations real filings use were missing and are in, and a seal number customs has refused (703) now stops a send while its neighbour (701) warns. Nothing an accepted filing carries is blocked.
25 SeptSharing
Five new webhook events for the line-first handshake
Systems listening on your webhooks now hear when a line shares its SAM with a BL of yours (alert.line-sam-shared), when a shared line is checked against your CSN (alert.line-sam-share-checked), when a line names you on a BL (alert.line-sam-named), when a CSN is due before the line’s cut-off (alert.csn-due) and when the other side answers on a link you sent (alert.counterparty-replied). Each carries the job number, the port and the BL, never a party.
25 SeptChecks
Your CSN is checked against the shipping line’s SAM before it goes
After the line files its SAM, a correction to your CSN is the line’s SAA — a request carriers charge for, with the consignee’s Bill of Entry held meanwhile. So Sign & upload now asks customs’ record what the line filed for every master B/L on the CSN and compares the two: a difference on a field customs has refused filings for (B/L date, packages, container count, load status) needs a reason of your own, any other difference pauses you and never stops you, and a check that cannot reach ICEGATE never holds a send back. If the master B/L’s PDF is on file the CSN is held against that too. And nothing leaves for ICEGATE until a screen names the filing and you tick it.
25 SeptSharing
A shipping line can share its SAM before filing it, and set its cut-off for CSNs
Open the draft SAM or SDM and press Share with CSN holders: the platform asks customs who holds a CSN on each B/L, compares each with your line and tells every holder here whether theirs matches, differs or is not quoted. A link goes to anyone; a CSN dropped on it is compared and never kept. Name the forwarder on a B/L by PAN, set your own cut-off, and at that cut-off you are told which lines still have no CSN. A forwarder sees one line — its own B/L — and a draft never stops its upload. Forwarders are reminded of the cut-off a day before it, the line’s own where set and otherwise 72 hours before arrival, said as a default.
25 SeptAfter filing
Form III for the consignee, from the CSN customs accepted
Brokers still ask for the old paper IGM’s one-page cargo declaration, naming the IGM line and sub-line each bill sits on. On an accepted arrival notice, tick the bills for one consignee, check the four details a CSN does not carry — shipping line, vessel, voyage, call sign, each filled in and each saying where its value came from — and print, download or e-mail the PDF. The IGM line comes from customs’ own record, never from your CSN’s numbering, and reads Awaited until the line’s manifest is on record.
25 SeptSharing
The shipping line can answer you on the link you sent — no account, no WhatsApp thread to lose
A case’s read-only link and a CSN reference card let the line’s desk read what you sent and, on the card, drop its file back — but not answer, so the answer went to WhatsApp and the case lost track of whose move it was. Both links now take a reply: one of a few set answers (seen and looking into it; your CSN is quoted on our line; we have filed the amendment; our figures are right, please check yours; and on a case, please send your CSN number and date), with a short note if it needs one. It arrives as a Reply from the other side alert, in the bell and by e-mail, and on a case it sits on the timeline marked as theirs. It changes nothing else — the case’s status and who holds the next step stay yours to set — and it is shown to them and to you, never to another party on the case. A note is plain text, and any web address in it is removed before it reaches you. Beside each link, WhatsApp opens WhatsApp with the message written, to send where the line’s desk already talks. This is a reply box, not a chat: nobody has to be online, and the answer stays with the bill it is about.
25 SeptChecks
What must match between the line’s manifest and your CSN — every field, sorted Fix, Check or OK to differ
Once the shipping line’s manifest (or another filer’s CSN) is on your master bill, your CSN’s page now lays every field the two can be compared on side by side, not only the seven customs publishes codes for, and sorts each difference into one of three groups. Fix: customs has refused filings where these differ — the bill of lading date, the packages, the number of containers and a box’s load status. Check: they should match, and one side is most likely mistyped, but customs has not been seen refusing them — a container type, a weight, a port. OK to differ: customs does not compare them here — the first Indian port, the line’s own container bond. Which group a field falls in depends on whether the line’s manifest line actually quotes your CSN: a line that carries the bill with its own house bills is not compared with your CSN at all, and nothing on it is shown as a refusal. The groups were worked out from refusals on record and from 430 pairs of filings customs accepted on both sides, on which the app raises no Fix at all. The same three words are used in the manifest editor’s ICEGATE check, on Bills and containers (a bill whose only differences are Check now reads “SAM differs — check”), in cases, on the tracker and in the e-mail you get about another filer: “Action needed” for a Fix, “Check:” for a Check, once per filing, and never for a difference customs allows. The reference page “What must match between the shipping line’s manifest and the forwarder’s CSN” lists every field.
25 SeptVessels
A shipping line checks a SAM or SDM it opened before, without uploading it again
Every SAM, SDM or SAA opened, sent or recorded here is now listed under SAM / SDM files kept here on the manifest page, and each version on a vessel call has Open in the editor — press one and it opens as if you had dropped the file, ready to check again against the CSNs the forwarders have filed since. Check the lines that quote a CSN (it was Check every line against customs) now also checks a line that quotes the PCIN or MCIN rather than the CSN number, and checks a departure manifest against the export CSNs. A forwarder’s CSN reference card pastes straight into a manifest line: its reference block fills all eight prior-reference fields at once and refuses a mistyped or swapped character. The card now carries each box’s seal, which no customs enquiry publishes, and when the line drops its manifest back on the card the forwarder sees what it was read as. On an export CSN, Bills and containers and its alerts now say SDM and SDA rather than SAM and SAA.
25 SeptPlatform
A new version of the data processing agreement: where the assistant’s answers are written
The assistant now writes its answers with a model Google serves only from its global endpoint, so a question and the material found for it may be processed in any of Google’s regions; finding that material still happens in the United States. The privacy policy already said so, and the data processing agreement now does too, as its version of 25 September 2026. Nothing else in it changed: your filings and the files you upload stay in Mumbai. If your organisation accepted the earlier version, Settings → Enterprise shows it as an earlier version until an Org Admin accepts this one.
23 SeptChecks
Every bill in your CSN checked against customs’ record, and told which version customs holds
Check with customs on the checker used to stop at six master bills and say so; a shipping line agent’s seventeen-bill CSN had three bills customs held differently, and the checker showed two. It now asks about every bill in the file, six at a time with the count climbing, under one line for the whole file — how many bills customs holds exactly as the file has them, how many differently, how many not at all — with the bills that need reading first and the rest folded away. Where a bill differs, the dates now say which kind of difference it is: customs’ record carries the date of the latest version it accepted, so a record dated after your file is named as the amendment or re-filing that superseded it, rather than “most likely an earlier draft, or amended”. Each coded value is read out beside the code, so a destination that moved from a Nhava Sheva CFS to a Mundra one reads as that. Every bill links to its page on BL tracking, and BL tracking now takes the file the other way: drop the CSN under any result and the whole file is compared, signed in or out. The tracking page’s green line says what it compares — the filings customs holds, against each other — so it can no longer be read as a verdict on your file.
23 SeptSharing
Send the shipping line your CSN details in one message, instead of keying them into its portal
The line cannot file its arrival manifest until it has your CSN, and most lines collect it through a portal you log into and type into — the CSN number and date, the PCIN, the VCN, the container ISO code — with the charges landing on you if it arrives late. Drop your CSN on SCMTR JSON upload, press Check with customs, and once customs’ record answers with a CSN number and date you can send the line the whole handover in one message: the reference, the voyage, every bill with its date in both forms and the MCIN or PCIN customs issued it, every container with its ISO type, size, load status, agent PAN and bond, and all eight prior-reference fields ready to quote. It comes with a spreadsheet the line’s desk can paste straight into its own sheet, the same content as JSON for a system to read, and a page where every value is one click to copy. Every value is read from customs’ own record rather than from your file, so what the line keys is what its own filing will be checked against — the two things customs does not publish, the SOC flag and the seal, come from your file and say so. Where your file and customs’ record disagree, the message carries customs’ values and lists the differences underneath. Offered for an entry, an exit and the amendments to either. And the checker’s own Email this file now says what customs’ record says, read as the composer opens: accepted — with the CSN number, the CINs and the handover attached — where the record lists the file’s filer; not on record yet where it lists nobody by that PAN; not checked where the record could not be read. It used to say “not filed with customs” for every checked file, including ones customs held under a CSN.
23 SeptSharing
E-mail a CSN before you file it, and e-mail a file you only checked here
Email used to be offered on a filing that had gone to customs. It is now offered on a draft as well, whatever its reporting event: the consignment as it stands goes to the line, the CFS or your customer so that a wrong container number or a missing PAN can be corrected while it still costs nothing. The message claims nothing — the subject begins “DRAFT — not filed with customs”, the stamp reads “Not filed yet” rather than a green or red verdict, the CSN reads “None — not filed yet”, and there is no customs tracking link on it, because customs has not been told about the bill and an empty lookup reads as lost cargo rather than as an unsent file. The message’s own page keeps a copy of exactly what was sent, so going on editing the draft does not rewrite what your recipient sees. And a file dropped on SCMTR JSON upload can be e-mailed the same way — under the name you dropped it as, with what the check found — for the console agent’s CSN that arrived by mail or the customer’s file you were asked to look over.
23 SeptFiling
One number names a transmission: your job number is now the control number too
ICEGATE builds the required file name from your job number, and of 250 declarations on record here — several filers’ — 244 carry that same number in the message header as well. Files made here now do the same: the job number is the control number, in the header, in decRef and in the file name alike. Customs does take a file where the two differ, and this does not block anything; what it costs is recognising the answer, because customs names its reply after the control number — an accepted amendment on record here came back named after a number that appeared nowhere in the filer’s own records. The one exception is the case ICEGATE has actually refused for: a second transmission of the same job on the same job date, which cannot reuse a number customs has already processed, so it takes one of its own and the filing says so. A refusal does not use a number up, so “Fix and file again” keeps yours. Dropping a file on SCMTR JSON upload now points out when its two numbers disagree, for a CSN and a SAM / SDM alike — as a note, never a refusal.
23 SeptFiling
Type the country’s name instead of guessing its two letters
The country boxes took two characters, which meant the only names you could search were the ones whose first two letters you already knew — type BA and you were offered Albania, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba and Azerbaijan before Bahamas. They are now search boxes: type Vietnam, UAE, South Korea, Turkey, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic or Holland and the right country comes back, accents and “and”s and brackets included, and only ever a code is stored. UK now answers the United Kingdom — it used to answer UA, Ukraine. Two-letter codes still go straight through untouched, because this list is a convenience over a field customs has never said it validates.
23 SeptAfter filing
The checklist prints full pages instead of a nearly empty first one
A filer reported that the printed checklist’s first page “is having hardly any information”. It was: a master bill section that did not fit in what was left of page one was moved whole to page two rather than split, leaving three bands of summary and half a page of white. Sections and cargo cards now flow across a page break, while headings stay with what follows them and no table row, container line or reconciliation figure is ever cut in half. On a real filing page one went from 31% full to 100%, and a ten-house-bill checklist came down from nine pages to seven.
23 SeptFiling
The container table waits until you have been in a cell before it turns it red
A brand-new filing in the wizard opened with “Equipment / container ID is required for this reporting event” in red under a row the wizard had just added for you, before you had typed anything. Every other field on the step already waited for you to leave it; the container table now does too. What is required is still on screen, still counted at the foot of the step and still listed in full at review — it simply is not shouted at you about work you are in the middle of starting.
22 SeptFiling
Check a manifest against customs now asks the IE-code register too — as a note, never a verdict
Five party codes were refused in one day for failing a shape check, and shape cannot catch the code that is well-formed and simply not a code. So Check every line against customs now also asks customs’ own Import-Export Code register about each distinct IEC-typed consignee code on the file — once per code, with every line and house bill that carries it listed — and a code the register does not return is noted under the result, in amber: something to check against the bill of lading before you send, not a refusal, because customs has refused no filing for it and a code just issued at DGFT can be absent while being right. PAN-typed codes are never asked about (a consignee who is not an importer would come back unknown while being correct), a malformed code is already the shape check’s finding, and an enquiry that does not answer is said as “not checked”, never as “unknown”.
22 SeptFiling
Three answers to filers: untick clears the copied consignee, a downloaded file is dated when it is written, and CON is on the package list
Unticking “Same as consignee” on the notify party now clears the nine copied fields instead of asking whether to keep them — what is cleared is only ever a copy of the consignee, since the tick asks first whenever it would overwrite something you typed — and one press, “Undo — put the consignee’s details back”, restores them. A downloaded CSN file now carries the moment it was written in all three places customs reads a date: the header’s date and time and the job date together, because in every accepted filing on record the two dates are equal and a file whose dates disagree is a shape nothing accepted shows; the draft takes the same stamp as the file, so Record a filing made elsewhere still pairs the two — and pairs a draft on its job and control number even when the file was downloaded on an earlier day — while the duplicate gate ignores the stamp. And CON (containers) is offered on the CSN’s package-type list: a filer asked what a 20-foot ISO tank files as, and every CSN on record with ISO tanks — including one customs accepted on 20 September 2026 — files them as package type CON with the count equal to the number of tanks.
22 SeptFiling
ICES Advisory 38/2026: a manifest line is dropped and re-added, and a CSN may be deleted and re-filed before the SAM
Customs’ six FAQs of 21 September 2026 are followed here. The manifest amendment builder now refuses an in-place change of a line’s consolidation indicator, consolidator PAN or prior reference (CSN, PCIN or MCIN) and asks you to remove the line and add it back — a removed line’s number is not reused, so the amendment carries the delete and the re-add together, the “first drop … and subsequently re-add” the advisory describes for putting a forwarder’s house bills onto a master bill filed straight (whether customs takes both in one SAA, no acknowledgement yet shows). The guide, the FAQ and the knowledge base now say that customs’ stated position is that a forwarder may delete a CSN and re-file corrected particulars before the line’s SAM (amendment stays the lighter route, and no such re-file has yet been seen accepted), and that customs says a container’s ISO code and agent PAN are now validated on the line’s manifest rather than the CSN — which no acknowledgement on record yet shows either way. The advisory is read question by question at /reference/ices-advisory-38-2026-faqs.
22 SeptPlatform
The walkthrough films are linked where you need them — and the assistant hands them out
Thirteen short films now, one job each, and every help or reference page a film walks through links it under its heading — including three new ones for the shipping line’s side: the SAA that takes a bill off a SAM, the SAA that puts a forwarder’s bill on from their CSN, and the rejection whose ACK names nothing. Ask the assistant how to amend a filing and it answers with the film as well as the steps. The full list is under Using the app; none of the films shows a customer’s data.
22 SeptPlatform
“SAM / SDM” and “Shipping line filing”, in your words, wherever the product said “vessel manifest”
The page, the tab, the drop targets, the assistant’s answers, the knowledge base and the phone app now all name the shipping line’s filing the way the trade does — SAM / SDM under Shipping line filing — so a help page never sends you to a place the header calls something else.
22 SeptChecks
Every field in a SAM / SDM is in the field reference — fourteen were missing
The vessel movement type (FI, II or RI), the rotation date, the expected departure, the next port of unlading, the cargo type, the HS, UN and IMDG codes on a line and the container weight had dropped out of the reference the assistant answers from, so a question about any of them was answered “not in my material”. They are back, with ICEGATE’s own wording, and a check now fails the build if the reference and the guide ever disagree again.
22 SeptPlatform
Container domestication: what it is, and why SCMTR does not file it
Asked for as “TCI domestication” by filers in a trade group and in the app. Domesticating a container — turning a line’s duty-free box into a duty-paid one that may stay in India — is a Bill of Entry for Home Consumption under JNCH Public Notice 79/2008, outside the SCMTR messages altogether, and customs publishes no format for it. The knowledge base and the assistant now say so, and say which two things on the arrival manifest it does touch.
22 SeptAfter filing
An accepted CSN is recorded on its own, from customs’ record — no ACK to wait for
ICEGATE’s public SAM/IGM enquiry began publishing the CSN number and date of each accepted filing in September 2026, and the platform now reads it for every filing still waiting on an answer, about every fifteen minutes for sixty days. For a fresh filing sent from here — not an amendment or a deletion — the CSN number and date are recorded and the filing turns accepted when all of four things hold: customs’ record names this very transmission by the id the upload was given; it is the only filing of your organisation on that master bill; and the record’s cargo — the packages and every container — agrees with what was sent, where a record with nothing to compare does not count as agreement. The filing’s history says the outcome was read from customs’ record, not from an acknowledgement. Two things it cannot do: a rejection never appears on that record, so a refusal still reaches you only in the emailed ACK — a filing still submitted hours after its siblings were accepted is one to look for in the registered mailbox; and a filing accepted before September 2026 may show no number. Keep the ACK all the same: it is customs’ own file and the only one that carries a rejection’s reasons, and dropping one that agrees on a filing already accepted from the record now keeps it as the transmission’s own answer, where until today it was turned away as already recorded. One that disagrees is refused for a person to settle. The Get the CSN number button on the filing’s page still asks the record on the spot.
22 SeptFiling
The bill of lading opens beside the form, and every value read from it jumps to its page
A bill of lading dropped as a PDF for reading is now drawn in a panel next to the guided steps — docked to the side on a wide screen, a sheet over the form on a narrower one — with Show the bill / Hide the bill at the top of the steps, and it can be zoomed, rotated and its text copied. Every value read from the bill shows the page it came from, and that page mark is a button: press it and the panel jumps to that page, so a figure is checked against the document without a second window. It shows the PDFs dropped in this sitting; after a reload, drop the bill again. A platform administrator opening a kept file sees it drawn the same way.
22 SeptSharing
The printed checklist names the notify party, and prints figures you can paste
Three things from a filer’s testing. The checklist decided “same as consignee” from the name alone and printed the consignee’s block in its place, so a consignee notifying its own broker was shown notified at its own address; it now compares every field and prints a notify party with details of its own as its own party. Weights printed with thousands separators and at most two decimals, on a sheet whose values are copied into other systems, so a bill filed as 10290.184 read 10,290.18 where it was pasted; they now print as plain numbers, up to three decimals, exactly as filed. And a downloaded CSN file is stamped with the time it was written, so a draft started on Monday and downloaded on Wednesday no longer carries Monday’s time in its header.
22 SeptChecks
A manifest acknowledgement is not a copy of the file it answers — four fields say so
On every reply to a vessel manifest (SACHM23), accepted or refused, the header’s versionNo reads ICES1_5, decRef.msgTyp reads F and every record’s amdType is dropped whatever was sent, and each line’s prevRef reads “null” on a refusal, filled only on an acceptance with the CIN customs issued. The amendment that earned an acceptance on record carried SAA1102, A and S; its reply carried none of them. So a refused reply that looks like an amendment sent as a fresh manifest is not evidence that one was, and the checks no longer read it that way: what was sent is read from the file you sent, never from the echo. The code-less refusal’s advice now says the same — check the declaration block of the file you sent, ask the ICEGATE helpdesk quoting the tracking id, and refile under a fresh job number.
22 SeptPlatform
No more e-mail about the privacy policy — a change is shown in the app, once, for you to accept
The e-mail announcing changes to the privacy policy, sent to every account holder, was a nuisance and has been withdrawn. A material change to the policy or the terms is now shown the next time you open SCMTR and asks you to accept it before you carry on; nothing about it is sent to your inbox. Two of the announced changes were withdrawn with it and never took effect: a question asked of the assistant without signing in is answered and not kept, and usage events are deleted after 30 days. Signed-in assistant questions are kept 90 days. The weekly summary of what you checked and the occasional tip start from 23 September 2026, count only what you do from that day, and stop in one click.
22 SeptFiling
“Delete the SAM and file an SAA” — what your customer is asking for, and where it is
The commonest request a shipping line gets right now is a forwarder asking it to delete the SAM and file an amendment, so a consolidation’s house bills reach the manifest. The platform has done that all along; nothing was called it, so nobody found it. Two things change. Removing a line now says what it is — it is how you “delete the SAM” for one bill — and when you build the amendment it spells out in plain words that customs is being told to delete that line from the manifest it holds, that the rest of the manifest is untouched and not re-sent, and that if the bill is going back on corrected you can add it in the same amendment — though customs has not said it takes a deletion and an addition in one SAA, and none has yet been seen accepted. Worth knowing, because the phrase alarms people: the SACHM23 message set has no deletion message at all — its six events are SAM, SAA, SDM, SEI, SDA and SDN — so “delete the SAM” never meant withdrawing the manifest, and never could. And the amendment now tells you who has to approve it before you sign. Whether an officer is involved turns on one fact — has customs granted this vessel entry inward — which the app already knows once you have asked about the manifest. Before entry inward, the process CBIC’s SCMTR team set out for the trade has no officer step (reported to the trade, not published in a notice). After it, you file first and the jurisdictional customs officer approves it afterwards, and customs’ record changes only then; the panel says so, in that order, because waiting for permission before filing is the way this goes wrong. It also names the flat ₹1,000 customs fee, and warns that the message guide’s errors 373 and 374 read as a flat refusal of what the September 2026 advisory allows — so an amendment after entry inward may come back refused rather than held, and neither reading has been withdrawn. Where nobody has asked customs about the vessel, it says that instead of guessing: “not checked” is not the same answer as “no approval needed”, and only one of them is safe to act on. A step-by-step walkthrough is in the knowledge base.
21 SeptChecks
Customs’ answer to a manifest, read as one story: what happened, and what to do
A refused SAM or SDM can come back with hundreds of marks that are really one sentence — and an answer to an amendment lists the entire manifest customs holds, so a two-line amendment returned seventeen hundred rows. Above customs’ own list the screen now says what happened in plain words: which rows are yours, which codes are one problem seen from two sides, numbered steps to fix it, and how much of the reading is customs’ word and how much is inference. Codes 385, 399 and 707, which are in no published list, are explained from the real answers they came back on.
21 SeptSharing
An amendment can be emailed, and says that it is one
The email button was offered on an arrival notification only, so a filer looking at an accepted amendment — with customs’ latest word on the bill — had no way to pass it on. An amendment to an arrival notification now sends the same way. Its subject reads “amendment accepted”, the text says these details replace the ones sent earlier for the bill, and the checklist names the event in words, so the line, the CFS and the broker do not take it for a duplicate. If no ACK is on the filing yet, the composer takes it there and then rather than sending you away to upload it.
21 SeptFiling
Every port in a list says what kind of place it is, and sea ports come first
Typing “bangalore” used to offer the air cargo complex first, two SEZs next and the ICD last, with nothing to tell them apart. Every row now carries its kind — PORT, ICD, CFS, SEZ, INLAND, LAND (a land border or rail station) or AIR — and sea locations rank above an air cargo complex, in the Indian list and the world search alike, which also answers to the name on your paperwork (“Bangalore ICD”). The first port of entry offers sea gateways only, because that is where a ship arrives, and says so when an inland name finds nothing.
21 SeptFiling
The redundant-house-details check now names the two blocks customs actually refused, and offers to take just those off
Error 370 — “redundant house details” — is what customs returns when a manifest line says its cargo was declared before and its house bills repeat what that earlier declaration already holds. This screen used to read it as “no house bills here” and offer to delete them. That was too blunt: customs’ own Trade Scenarios table asks for them — a house bill on such a line is required to carry its own reference, its prior reference, its customs location and its containers. What it excludes is the transport document and the item details — the parties, ports and goods the earlier declaration holds. So the check now blocks a send only where a house bill carries one of those two, which are the blocks a real refusal named, and the one-press fix takes exactly those off and leaves the bills. Everything else the table happens to exclude is amber instead of red, because nothing on record shows customs refusing it, and blocking a send over an unproven rule costs a filing window for nothing. A block that is present but empty no longer counts at all — the file strips it before it goes out, so being refused for it would have been being refused for something the file does not carry. One more check is new and amber: an amendment action (amdType) on a full SAM, SDM, SEI or SDN, which tells customs to change a line it does not yet hold. Until now a stray “D” there also silenced this screen’s other checks on that line.
21 SeptFiling
Entry inward no longer switches the manifest screen off, because it does not end amendment
Until now, once customs granted a vessel entry inward this screen said the manifest “can no longer be amended” and switched its tools off. That is one of two things customs has published, and it is the older one: the message guide lists errors 373 and 374 that read as a flat refusal, while ICES Advisory 37/2026 of 18 September says an amendment after entry inward is allowed with the jurisdictional officer’s approval — and the process CBIC’s SCMTR team set out for the trade has the amendment filed first and approved afterwards, which only makes sense if the system takes it in. Nothing here should enforce the half of a contradiction customs has not resolved, so it no longer does: pre-flight stays available, because somebody preparing that amendment is exactly who wants it, and the screen now says what actually has to happen — the shipping line deletes what it filed, files the amendment, and a customs officer approves it — rather than that nothing can be done. The bill-by-bill check against ICEGATE stays switched off, as the saving it always was rather than as a verdict. What “delete” covers is not stated anywhere published, so ask your line whether it means withdrawing the manifest or deleting the bill’s own line from it — see the knowledge base, which now carries all three amendment windows. (Corrected 25 September: ICES Advisory 38/2026, published on 21 September, settles it — “delete” is the bill’s own line, dropped and re-added only when the change is to how the bill is consolidated, the consolidator’s PAN or the CSN / PCIN / MCIN it quotes. Any other amendment is an update to the line, with no deletion first.)
21 SeptFiling
Build an arrival or departure manifest here, with no other software
A bulk, tanker, break-bulk or tramp call can now be filed from nothing: on Shipping line filing, take Start one from scratch. Give the ship’s IMO number and customs’ own record fills in the call — the VCN, the rotation number and date, the port and the expected arrival — so none of the five is copied off an e-mail. Then pick which of the four filings a call needs, in the words a steamer agent uses: the arrival manifest (what used to be the import IGM), entry inward, the departure manifest (the export EGM) and the departure notification. On an arrival manifest a bill of lading is ten plain questions — the bill and its date, shipper, consignee, what the cargo is, its HS code, how many units, the weight, where it loaded and whether it is dry bulk, liquid bulk or break-bulk — and the other thirty fields of the line are written the way real bulk manifests write them, each shown with the reason and none of them locked. The totals, every sequence number and the vessel’s container list are counted from the file, so they cannot disagree with it, and the ports the ship called at are numbered for you. Your filing identity is typed once in Settings and each ship’s particulars are remembered, so its next call asks almost nothing. A departure manifest’s cargo lines are export lines and are added in the editor rather than from the ten questions. The manifest then opens in the editor, where it is checked, signed and uploaded exactly as one opened from a file — nothing reaches customs until you sign, and customs, not this app, decides whether a manifest is accepted — no manifest built here has been through that yet, because none has been sent.
21 SeptChecks
The export checklist wherever you look at an export, and two checks that now warn instead of block
“What customs checks on an export” is no longer only on the guided steps’ last screen: drop an export file on the inspector and the same eight lines read it, and the full form’s issue list opens with “Export checks: N of 8 clear”. Two checks moved from red to amber, because no refusal on record shows customs enforcing them, and red is kept for what a refusal proves: an HS code repeated across a bill’s items now warns, naming customs’ code 157, and a container whose weight differs between the master bill and its house bills’ shares now warns on imports as it does on exports — customs’ own cross-checks compare packages, not weight. A package count that disagrees still blocks everywhere. And an export filed with cargo movement TI or FT is now told, in amber, that every export customs has been seen to take or refuse moves as TC.
21 SeptFiling
File an export (CSN Exit, SCX) through the guided steps
Exports now have their own path through the guided steps. The first screen asks how many shipping bills the B/L covers: one is a straight bill that names that shipping bill’s PCIN; several is a consolidation, where the master names no PCIN — customs issues it an MCIN — and each shipping bill gets its own line with its own PCIN and its own containers ticked off the B/L. Every check is named by the code customs answers with and stops the filing before it is sent: 159 (a straight bill with no PCIN), 383/384 (one PCIN used twice), 286 and 365 (an Indian port as the destination or port of receipt), 091 (a leg that ends where it began), 239 with 381 (a line listing none of the B/L’s containers), 709, 221 and 225 (packages that do not add up), 053 (a net weight of zero) and 115 (EX filed with LC instead of TC). The last screen lists them as “What customs checks on an export”, each line clear or naming what is wrong. Pasting the bill of lading, or dropping its PDF, fills the export’s fields and offers the shipping bill number it names — never a PCIN, which no bill of lading carries. And the two start cards on CSN filing are now named by direction: Import filing — CSN Entry (SCE) and Export filing — CSN Exit (SCX).
20 SeptFiling
Compact guidance for filers who know the form
A Guidance switch — Full or Compact — at the top of the guided steps and in the full form. Compact tucks every explanation behind an ⓘ, sizes each box to the value it holds, and lays fields and whole sections side by side across a wide screen; warnings and errors always show. Everyone starts on Full, and once you have filed a few CSNs you are asked once whether you would like Compact.
19 SeptAfter filing
BL tracking marks what the shipping line’s manifest bears out
Where a figure on your CSN is also on the shipping line’s own manifest, BL tracking now says so — a separate confirmation, not two filers copying one number. Every PAN on the public result shows only its last four characters, enough to tell filers apart without handing anyone with a bill number the whole identity.
19 SeptFiling
Nhava Sheva and Mundra CFS codes in the destination search
The destination port search now offers the Nhava Sheva and Mundra CFS codes customs has accepted on real filings — INNSA1ELP1, INNSA1MSA1 and ten more — instead of other ports’ facilities. Their operators’ names and bonds are not on record yet, so each row says so rather than guessing.
19 SeptFiling
Plainer names on the wizard’s first step
The master bill’s section on the first step is now headed Master Entry; the two ways to start from a bill are Upload bill of lading (PDF) and Paste bill of lading text; and the ports carry the names on your bill — POL, POD and FPOD. The house bill is stated rather than asked — House B/L (HBL) included, with Add HBL or Remove it beside it — and the vessel box uses your words: Vessel name / Voyage, IMO no., VCN, and Fetch VCN here when you do not have one yet. Searching a port by name flags a trade code filings still use.
18 SeptVessels
Every vessel call gets its own page
Vessel calls, in the header, opens a page per ship’s call at a port — the port, VCN and rotation number — where your CSNs on it, every manifest transmission and customs’ reply, and the files either side has shown for it sit together. It appears on its own the moment a filing or a kept file first names the call.
18 SeptVessels
See which of your containers are held, and why
Bills and containers, on each vessel call’s page, reads every bill and container of yours on the ship against the shipping line’s manifest and customs’ record — worst status first, with the one next step for each: no CSN on record, a difference from the manifest, an amended CSN, or nothing open.
18 SeptChecks
Explain this rejection
Customs’ reply to a refused vessel manifest names most lines by number only. Explain this rejection resolves every refused line to its bill on customs’ own public record, compares it with the CSN it quotes, and says in one sentence whether it is a data error at all — with a CSV and an evidence pack to send the helpdesk.
18 SeptFiling
Upload bills of lading, the PDFs themselves
Drop the master and every house bill of lading as PDFs and the wizard fills itself the way a paste does — plus what a paste cannot know: which document is the master and which are the houses, each box’s own seal, and a copy kept so a filing can be checked against it later.
18 SeptFiling
Build a manifest amendment, and fill in the CSN references it needs
A shipping line or its agent can now build a minimal amendment from the manifest already open — only the lines that changed — add a line generated straight from the CSN it quotes, and fill a manifest’s missing CSN references from the call’s own CSN list, under the organisation’s own ICEGATE portal login.
18 SeptFiling
File a vessel’s worth of CSNs in one sitting
Import a spreadsheet or a folder of CSN files and CSN batches checks every one, walks you through what needs attention, and signs and sends them in turn — one job, not one filing at a time.
18 SeptSharing
Send a CSN reference to the carrier, without handing over the filing
A handshake link opens a read-only page for whoever files the counterpart consignment on your bill — the seven contract figures customs cross-checks, and nothing else of the filing. They can drop their own file back to you from the same link.
18 SeptSharing
A shared page to sort out a disagreement on a bill
Cases opens a page for a problem on a vessel call — a refused manifest line, a CSN that disagrees with the carrier’s — with a read-only link for the other party, messages drafted from what customs’ record actually shows, and a timeline of what has been shared.
18 SeptPlatform
API keys and webhooks, for organisations whose plan includes them
An Org Admin can mint an API key and register a webhook endpoint under Settings → API, so your own systems can check and send files to SCMTR and hear back by signed webhook. Plans are not sold in the app yet — write to support@scmtr.io if your organisation needs this.
17 SeptPlatform
Every file you upload is kept, so a filing’s history stays together
Declarations, acknowledgements, vessel manifests and customs’ replies are now kept for two years whichever screen you upload them on, so a filing can be linked with its replies and amendments over time and support can work from the files themselves. The updated terms say what is kept and why, and you are asked to accept them the next time you open SCMTR.
13 SeptChecks
A CSN with no acknowledgement is checked against customs’ own record
Drop a CSN on Check an ICEGATE file without its acknowledgement and it now asks customs’ public record whether that exact version is on file: green when it is, amber when customs holds a different version — with the fields that differ, weights compared to the two decimals customs keeps — and grey when nothing by your PAN is on record for the bill. The same lookup is the honest answer to “can I file this bill fresh”: a listed bill draws 122/123 and wants an amendment; a blank one is taken, as a new CSN with a new PCIN.
13 SeptChecks
Export refusals 091, 159 and 365 caught before sending
Read off four export filings customs refused: on an export, an itinerary leg whose port of call is also its next port of call is refused (091); a previous declaration of type S, B or Y needs the CIN type and the PCIN in the previous-reference block (159); and transhipment cargo whose port of receipt is an Indian port should be local clearance (365). All three now stop the filing before it leaves, naming the code they would have drawn. A cargo-type/movement pair the trade-scenario table does not allow (115) was already caught.
13 SeptFiling
CFS bonds follow the port the box landed at; the CFS is the transhipper at Chennai and Kolkata
A Chennai CFS files one bond for cargo landed at Chennai and another for cargo landed at Kattupalli or Ennore and moved to it — five CFSs, fourteen accepted filings, no exceptions. The transhipper picker now looks the bond up for the port you report at and offers the CFS your cargo is going to first, saying so when it holds no bond for that landing port. At Chennai and Kolkata, where every accepted filing names the CFS operator itself as the transhipper for local cargo too, the route now fills the CFS’s PAN and bond; Kolkata’s ALL1 and CIL2, Gateway’s PAN and the operators for ICD Irungattukottai and ICD Patli were added. Bonds change without notice — one filing carrying a CFS’s superseded PAN was accepted and had to be amended — so everything fills for confirmation, never silently.
13 SeptFiling
The shipping line’s PAN, from filings customs accepted
For fourteen lines — Maersk, MSC, ONE, OOCL, Evergreen, COSCO, HMM, Gold Star, Emirates, Wan Hai, Interasia, PIL, Hapag-Lloyd and Unifeeder — the Consolidator PAN now fills on every route from the PAN their own accepted filings carry, marked confirmed; for six of them customs’ public record shows the line’s own declaration under that PAN, and the note says as customs records it. RCL’s two PANs are offered by port. Wan Hai’s PAN was corrected: the reference list had OMEGA Shipping Service’s against it, and the live routing row is fixed.
13 SeptChecks
What customs actually takes: apostrophes, a non-breaking space, weights to two decimals
Measured against accepted filings rather than assumed: an apostrophe in a goods description (MEN’S) is allowed, a correctly encoded non-breaking space is allowed and no longer read as an encoding fault, a line break pasted into goods text becomes a space instead of gluing two words, and a weight with more than two decimals gets an amber note saying what customs’ record will show. A master whose weight is whole kilograms over house bills with decimals no longer blocks on the rounding gap — it warns. A consignor country that is a one-letter slip from the port of acceptance’s (KP for KR, NE for NG) is pointed out.
13 SeptFiling
Sign & Submit, with the DSC token in your machine
Signing no longer means a trip to the ICEGATE portal. The scmtr DSC Signer — a small installer, signed by TAGQA Pty Ltd, that runs in your notification area and starts with Windows — asks your token for the signature and the filing goes straight to customs. The app tells you when the signer is missing or too old and offers the download; the portal route stays for anyone who cannot install software. Several certificates on one machine are named and chosen from, and the one about to sign is shown before the PIN prompt.
13 SeptFiling
File a vessel manifest from the editor
A shipping line or steamer agent can now sign and file a SACHM23 arrival or departure manifest from here — with your own signing tool, or with the scmtr DSC Signer — and it goes through the same gate a CSN does, so the same manifest cannot reach customs twice. The file is checked again on the server before it leaves; errors refuse it, warnings do not. Customs’ answer to a manifest still reaches your registered ICEGATE email: the platform says the file was taken, never that it was accepted.
13 SeptPlatform
Sign in with Microsoft
The Microsoft 365 work account your office already uses signs you in, beside Google and the emailed link. One condition, Microsoft’s rather than ours: it has to vouch that the address belongs to your organisation’s domain, and if it cannot the sign-in says so and points at the other two routes to the same organisation.
13 SeptChecks
Rejections 316, 365 and 366 explained, and a refused amendment told the truth
Error 316 now says where the CSN number and date come from — the positive acknowledgement of the filing being amended, and the date is the half that is usually wrong. Errors 365 and 366 name the port of receipt they are really about and the field in Location & customs to change. And a refused amendment or deletion is no longer told to refile the cargo fresh, which collides with the original; it is told to correct and re-send the amendment.
13 SeptChecks
A warning before a control number is reused
Check an ICEGATE file now says when a file’s job number and date look already used by a transmission from your organisation, or when a bill of lading is dated after the job date — the two things ICEGATE refuses by email as “Header validation failed … The Control Number has already been processed”, before any field is checked.
12 SeptAfter filing
The same file will not go to ICEGATE twice
Every filing is fingerprinted when it is frozen for signing — once on the exact bytes your signature covers, and once on the shipment with the control number, job number and date taken out, which is what a regenerated file looks like. If a transmission has already gone and customs has not answered, sending it again is refused with the earlier one named and one click to open it; if customs has already accepted it, you are pointed at an amendment instead. A rejected filing is never in the way, a 700 included. And if you know it has to go again, you can say why, and the reason is kept with the filing.
12 SeptAfter filing
When we cannot confirm a filing arrived
If an upload leaves and no answer comes back — a timeout, a dropped connection — the filing now says exactly that instead of reading as a failure and inviting a second copy. It is locked and marked as sent, because that is the safer assumption, but no tracking number is claimed. The platform then keeps reading customs’ public record for you, and clears the doubt itself when your filing appears there; dropping the emailed acknowledgement on it settles it too. If nothing ever arrived, an organisation admin can return it to draft.
12 SeptPlatform
Filings are paced, and held when ICEGATE is struggling
Uploads now leave at a steady pace rather than as fast as they are pressed, and if uploads stop completing across the platform, filings are held for a few minutes and you are told so. Either way the message says the important part: nothing was sent, and your signed file is unchanged.
12 SeptFiling
Seal type beside the seal number
On the master’s container table the seal type is now a column next to the seal number, filled as a bottle seal once a seal number is typed. The other details of a box are the same on nearly every container, so the More row can stay shut.
12 SeptFiling
Next port of unlading, set once for every house bill
The route for all house bills on the master step now carries the next port of unlading. It fills itself from the destination — the ICD for inland cargo, the port for a CFS there — and every house bill going that way takes it; a bill sent somewhere else works out its own. In the full form a new house bill takes it from its destination too, instead of the reporting port.
11 SeptFiling
Plain text, whatever you paste
ICEGATE refuses a file that is not UTF-8, and every filing customs has accepted is plain text. Every field now converts as you type or paste — curly quotes to straight, long dashes to hyphens, É to E, ₹ to RS, € to EUR, µ to U. A value brought in another way is checked instead, and Check an ICEGATE file lists any character that is not plain text by line and column, with the field it sits in — the line is the one ICEGATE’s refusal email names.
11 SeptVessels
Told when the expected arrival moves
If customs moves the expected arrival day of the call your filing names, you are emailed once with both days, the row says Arrival moved, and the filing’s page shows the day it moved from. Nothing needs amending — the CSN carries no arrival date. The public Track page now shows the expected arrival too. Nobody has yet seen customs revise one, so this is watching for something that may be rare.
11 SeptChecks
The 700 checklist stops calling every refusal a duplicate
On a filing sent from here, the checklist for a 700 counted the refused transmission’s own control number as a re-use, so every reasonless refusal read as a duplicate. It now leaves that transmission out. The checklist also no longer ranks the causes of a 700, because nobody outside customs knows which is commonest: it runs cheapest check first.
11 SeptFiling
The master’s PAN follows the line and the route
A shipping line can file under an agent on some routes, and which one can change with the destination. Pick the line printed on the bill — it is kept with your draft and never sent to customs — and the Consolidator PAN fills for your port and destination: Wan Hai from Chennai to Chennai fills Wan Hai’s own PAN. Where the agent’s PAN is not on file — Wan Hai under OMEGA from Chennai to Bangalore — the field names the agent and asks you for it. It says whose PAN it is and follows if the destination changes; a PAN you typed yourself is never replaced. The routes come from a working filer and are not checked with customs.
11 SeptChecks
The VCN on an uploaded CSN is checked
A CSN made in other software never met the voyage check we run before signing. Open one on Check an ICEGATE file and its VCN is now compared with the calls customs lists for the ship — amber where it looks like another call, or like last voyage’s on a ship that calls weekly. It is advice only: ICEGATE decides.
11 SeptChecks
One drop target, named Check an ICEGATE file
The CSNs page had two cards that both took an acknowledgement. There is now one, named for ICEGATE rather than for us: an acknowledgement for one of your filings is recorded on the spot, and anything else — including an acknowledgement for a filing made elsewhere, which used to be refused — opens in the checker already loaded.
11 SeptChecks
Too long is caught however the value arrived
A field’s length limit used to stop only typing, so an address picked from the address book or brought in with a file could be longer — and ICEGATE failed a whole file by email over a 74-character street address in a 70-character field. A value over its field’s limit is now a red issue however it got there, naming the limit and how many characters to remove.
10 SeptFiling
Type the route once for every house bill
On a consolidation the master step now has a route for all house bills — port of loading, final destination, transhipper and item type. Every house bill starts with it; send one bill somewhere else and only that bill changes, and change the route later and every bill you have not touched follows. Nothing extra is sent to customs.
10 SeptChecks
A changed destination stays on the bill you changed
In the guided steps each house bill used to copy its route from the one before it, so sending one bill to a different ICD quietly moved every untouched bill after it too. Each bill now takes the master’s route, and the one you change is the only one that changes.
10 SeptFiling
Pick the shipping line by name
The master’s Consolidator PAN — the Indian PAN the line files under, printed nowhere on the bill — now searches by the line’s name. The PANs your own filings have used come first, then a reference list, with the agency at your port first where a line uses a different one there.
9 SeptFiling
Find an inland depot or SEZ by the name you actually use
Our port list carried the full customs address for every ICD and SEZ, so searching for “Khurja ICD” or “Dahej SEZ” found nothing. You can now search by the short name your paperwork uses, and by the operator’s name even where it has since changed hands. The official name is still what gets filed.
9 SeptFiling
Paste a weight straight off the bill of lading
Pasting “12,500 KGS” into a weight or volume box used to be refused outright, so you cleaned it up by hand. It now becomes 12500, and the unit fills itself in beside it if you have not already chosen one.
9 SeptChecks
The duplicate-bill check works in the full form
Typing a master B/L asks our records and ICEGATE whether that bill has already been filed — the check behind rejection codes 122 and 123, caught before you key a whole declaration. It had been in the guided steps only; it now runs in the full form too, on every master consignment.
9 SeptFiling
The house B/L date says how it compares with the master
A line beside the house bill’s date tells you whether it matches the master’s, and names the master’s date when it does not. It is a statement, not a warning — a house bill issued on a different day is ordinary.
9 SeptFiling
Unticking “same as consignee” now asks what to do
It used to leave the copied consignee details sitting in the notify-party fields, which was easy not to notice. It now asks whether to keep them for editing or clear them; ignoring the question keeps them, so nothing is ever erased for you.
9 SeptFiling
The ship search sits at the top of the master step
Finding the vessel is one of the first things you do, so the search moved up beside the step heading. And if you find the ship before typing a bill number, that is no longer lost when the tab closes — the filing is kept in your browser until it is saved properly.
8 SeptChecks
Cargo type, movement and consolidation are checked as one combination
Customs does not validate these three fields separately — it checks the combination, which is where rejection codes 115, 118 and 126 come from. The form now checks the same way, and the guide sets out which combinations customs accepts.
8 SeptSharing
Uploaded files are kept for seven days
A file you drop in to be inspected is now retained for a week rather than discarded immediately, so you can come back to it. What is kept, for how long, and who can see it is set out on the privacy page.
7 SeptVessels
Your VCN is re-checked before you file
A vessel call number chosen early can be replaced by the port before you file. It is now checked against customs’ own list of calls whenever you open the filing, and again as you sign or upload. If the call you picked is gone, the page says so and offers the current one — nothing is changed for you.
7 SeptVessels
You are told when a VCN changes, without opening anything
We keep reading customs’ list of calls for the ships on your open filings. If the call one of them names disappears, we email whoever created the filing and mark the row — after customs has said it twice, so one odd answer does not reach your inbox. A draft saved with a ship but no VCN is emailed the first time a call appears for it.
7 SeptVessels
Ships without an IMO number can be filed
Barges, country craft and other hulls with no IMO have their own way of being identified in the message. The ship step now handles them, and switches the vessel type with the name so the filing stays valid.
6 SeptChecks
Master and house container figures are cross-checked, box by box
Weight and packages are now yours to type at both levels, and the review page shows the arithmetic per container with a tick or a cross. A master that disagrees with the house bills under it is caught before customs does — the mismatch that used to arrive as a penalty.
6 SeptFiling
Correcting the consolidator PAN carries the container agent code with it
Fixing a mistyped consolidator PAN on the master used to leave the old agent code on every container, to be corrected by hand. It now follows the PAN, in the guided steps and the full form, including on a draft you reopen later.
6 SeptAfter filing
Drop an acknowledgement onto any filing
A customs acknowledgement can be uploaded from a filing’s own page or straight from the list. We check it belongs to the filing you dropped it on and refuse it if it does not, so an outcome cannot be recorded against the wrong job.
6 SeptAfter filing
“Fix and file again” after a rejection
A refused filing can be reopened on the same job number with a fresh control number, with the errors customs returned listed against the fields they belong to.
5 SeptFiling
The guided steps are master-first
Three steps: the master bill with one row per container, then each house bill — which ticks the containers it uses and types only its share — then review. FCL and LCL are worked out from the sharing rather than asked.
5 SeptSharing
Read the guide, FAQ and roadmap without leaving the app
The reference pages open inside the app when you are signed in, instead of throwing you out to the public site and back.
4 SeptFiling
Text is put into capitals, and unfileable characters dropped
Every filing customs accepts is in capitals, so party names, addresses and goods descriptions convert what you type and what you paste. Characters that cannot be filed are dropped as you go rather than turning up as a rejection — the B/L numbers are stricter still, because ICEGATE rejects specials there by name.
4 SeptFiling
Open and correct a vessel manifest
A SACHM23 manifest of any size opens as a table you can search and correct, with five self-consistency checks against the codes ICEGATE uses. Saving writes the file back byte for byte apart from what you changed.
2 SeptChecks
See what customs already holds against your bill
As you type a master B/L we ask ICEGATE’s public record what it already has: whether another party has filed against it, whether one of your own filings is on record, and whether the carrier’s manifest has arrived. It stays quiet when there is nothing to say.
1 SeptPlatform
Filing works without our ICEGATE credentials
Filings go to customs through the direct channel, so you do not need an Open API key of your own to file. Acknowledgements for that channel are not polled automatically — the filing page says so plainly, and an acknowledgement can be recorded by hand or by dropping the file in.

August 2026

31 AugFiling
More of what real filings carry
Fields that appear in accepted filings but had nowhere to go in the form — measured against a corpus of real declarations — are now part of the message the form builds.
29 AugAfter filing
Track a container with the carrier
A filing’s containers link through to the shipping line’s own tracking page where the line can take a number in a link, and otherwise open their page with the number ready to paste.
28 AugFiling
Sign on ICEGATE and bring the file back
Download the frozen declaration, sign it with your DSC on the ICEGATE portal, and upload it back. We check the signed file is the one we gave you before it goes anywhere.
25 AugFiling
House bills and shared containers
A consolidation can carry several house bills under one master, sharing the same containers, with each bill’s share of the packages and weight recorded against the box it travels in.
22 AugPlatform
The declaration form, end to end
Every field of the SCMTR Cargo Summary Notification, with the mandatory ones marked for the reporting event you are filing, blocks that do not apply hidden, and validation that reads the same rules customs does.

Something you need that is not here? Tell us on the roadmap — everything on it came from someone who files under SCMTR.

What has shipped

October 2026

Every problem on a house bill says which house bill it is on

Accepting a colleague’s invitation keeps the organisation you already filed from

Bills by e-mail: the line’s PAN on every box, its sizes, and a bill sent as two files

CSN cut-offs: a call being confirmed by its line shows on your CSN and in VCN search

Amendments and exports: a bill with no amendment type named as 305, a dock’s code in the port field, and a whole-CSN deletion sent as an update

Shipping line filing: a CSN quoted under the wrong indicator is fixed in one press, and fewer false stops

The pending split-ups board shows where the splits are stuck, reads in pages, and looks for a bill at the neighbouring customs location

The port of receipt follows a corrected destination in the full form, and the port list offers the station filings use first

The pending console split-ups board: the consolidators’ register, public, read against customs’ record daily

More calls on the cut-off board — and calls a line is still confirming shown as such

The cut-off board says plainly when a cut-off is not known — and what to do

CSN cut-offs: your line’s own rule on a CSN, and Visakhapatnam’s calls

BL tracking and cut-off links say what they found in WhatsApp

Tonnes and kilograms read as one weight wherever they meet, and a passport number spotted

A passport number is typed PPT, and a broken file says which line to fix

Shipping line filing: three more mistakes in amendment files named, and an old SAM with a new rotation spotted

CSN cut-offs: the lines’ India-wide rules, more calls, and the board in the app’s header

A ship’s VCNs in the WhatsApp preview

The CSN cut-off board

Arrival from the line’s own tracking, with a countdown

A bill printing several HS codes is drafted as one item, and opens in the guided steps

Bills by e-mail: up to 40 bills, and a draft that needs less fixing

An SAA removing a line is checked down to its house bills

Fewer stops for what customs accepts, and two new cross-checks

An SCA is checked against what customs holds before it is sent

SAA: a removed line goes whole, and three more refusals are read

A box kept aboard as an empty no longer stops an SAA

Everything filled in for you now fits the field it goes into

Bills by e-mail: the line’s agent, the size codes and "to order" bills filled in

Every walkthrough film has its own page

A house bill carrying its own master B/L number is flagged

E-mail your bills of lading and get the checklist back

Removing a line in an SAA: its containers come off the vessel list too, and the container total says so

The EGM reply after a departure manifest is read: which shipping bills made the EGM and which did not

Fetch from ICEGATE no longer reads a shipping bill’s weight in tonnes as kilograms

The seal check names 701 as well as 703

Invited to a colleague’s organisation while you have your own? Now you can accept

Choose a CSN and its ACK together, and both open as one

A removed line names the CIN it quotes, and a line quoting a CSN by number names your own PAN

What customs and the ports published since August, in the knowledge base

A weight in tonnes is read as tonnes, and another port’s VCN is pointed out

Every date and time is shown in Indian time, marked IST

A box two lines share may be FCL on both, and a drop-and-re-add is read as one change

September 2026

A line from a CSN finds the MCIN on customs’ record when the forwarder’s CSN has none

A question asked of the assistant without signing in is now kept for 90 days, with nothing that identifies you

Counting customs’ manifest keeps every detail of each line, and a count already made is ready at once

A line declared C that names its CSN by MCIN is stopped again, with a one-press fix

An SAA line that re-declares a bill a CSN already declares is stopped (error 753)

Country and PAN boxes take the first letter, Form III drops a default organisation name, and a missing HS code shows on the checklist

The check against the line’s SAM before sending is paced, and says which BLs it could not reach

Add a line to an SAA from a CSN, quoted the way accepted lines quote it

See when your file reached ICEGATE, and values the guide does not name

Another party’s CSN on your master bill no longer locks your amendment — it warns of error 320

“Ask a question” in the header, and a feedback button that no longer looks like a chat

An SAA whose declaration says S instead of U is stopped; two false warnings on SAMs are gone

An IMO number with the ship’s MMSI beside it is caught, with the number to keep

Fill an export from its documents: the B/L, then customs’ record of the shipping bill

Large filings save and open faster

Counting customs’ manifest: every line on the map, under the line’s PAN too

Check with customs asks about every bill, and remembers what customs confirmed

A shipping line’s export CSN for a whole vessel is checked, not turned away

The port a CSN is reported at, filled in when Settings leave it blank

More filings on a page, and a page that says when SCMTR has been updated

When the cargo reaches India, from the master bill of lading

The SAA checks are a pre-check: what would change the manifest by mistake is an error

Open an SAA and see at once what customs would refuse

Faster pages when you are signed in, and on large filings

The activity log is kept for twelve months, and its record of your filings with the filings

See every browser and phone signed in to your account, and sign any of them out

Answers to filers’ questions, each at its own link

The master’s FCL or LCL stays as you set it

A reminder when you leave blank what almost every accepted filing gives

Count the manifest customs holds before your SAA goes, with no ICEGATE login

A refused SAA still tells the next one how many lines customs holds

A container two lines share is LCL on the SAM, as every manifest on record files it

Paste a party and the city, state, PIN and country land in their own fields

Parties, vessel and items are remembered when you download a filing or customs accepts it