My VCNs: every filing on one vessel call

A VCN (vessel call number) is the number a port issues for one ship arriving there on one voyage — one call — with the rotation number, a separate number, beside it. Everything customs does with a Cargo Summary Notification or a shipping line filing (SAM / SDM) hangs off that call, so SCMTR keeps a page per VCN — My VCNs in the header — where the forwarder's side and the shipping line's side of the same arrival sit together.

What does a vessel call page show?

Your CSNs on this call — each filing of yours that names the call, with its status, CSN number and the MCIN or PCIN customs issued.Manifest filings — every transmission of a manifest for the call that your organisation holds: the original and each amendment, with customs' reply beside each one. A manifest is tracked as a filing with versions, the way a CSN is. Open in the editor beside a version opens that file in the manifest editor with no upload — to check it again against the CSNs filed since, or to build its amendment.Bills on this call — each bill of lading, and every message that names it: your CSN, a manifest line, a customs reply, with its date and outcome.Timeline — in the order things happened, by the time each file or reply itself states. Where a file reached SCMTR later than it was made, that is shown beneath it.Files — every file your organisation keeps for the call. Each download is recorded.Buttons to Bills and containers (see Why is my container held?), to file a batch of CSNs from a spreadsheet, to Rejections explained (see Customs refused my manifest) and to the call's cases.

How does a vessel call get created?

By itself. A call appears the moment something of yours names one: a CSN you file or record, a SAM / SDM you open, save or send, or a customs reply or acknowledgement you check. Each lands on the call its own port and VCN (or rotation) name. You never create a call by hand, and you never have to file anything in a particular order for the page to exist.

What can I drop on a vessel call page?

Any mix of ICEGATE files, as many as you like — they are sent one at a time, so a large manifest and twenty acknowledgements do not get in each other's way. Each file is kept and then treated as what it is:

Why did my file land on a different call from the one I dropped it on?

Because a file belongs to the call its own contents name, not to the page it was dropped on. A reply for another rotation dropped here belongs there, and the answer on screen says so rather than quietly moving it or pinning it to the wrong ship.

I filed the manifest somewhere else — how do I record it?

Use Record it here on the My VCNs page (Record a shipping line filing made elsewhere). Drop the manifest and, if you have it, customs' reply. The difference from dropping the same files on a call page is what you are saying about them: here you are telling SCMTR the manifest was filed, so it is recorded as filed rather than merely seen, and the call's history reads accordingly.

Who can see a vessel call?

Your organisation sees its own filings and files on the call, and the counterpart's entry on your own bills where customs' public record shows one. Other companies filing on the same ship are never listed — not their names, not their bills. Two organisations that both use SCMTR each have their own page for the same call, and neither sees the other's.

What is a case, and can the other side answer me in it?

A case is one problem on a call — a refused manifest, a bill whose SAM differs from your CSN — with its bills, what customs' record says about each, who holds the next step, and a timeline. Open one from a vessel call, from a refusal explained line by line, or from Open a case with the line on Bills and containers.

Add the shipping line (or the forwarder) as a party and give them a read-only link: no account needed, it expires, and you can withdraw it. WhatsApp beside the link opens WhatsApp with the message written; you pick the chat. On the link they see where the case stands and whose move it is, the bills, and only the timeline entries you chose to share.

Since 25 September 2026 they can answer on it. They pick one of a few set answers — Seen, we are looking into it; Done, your CSN is quoted on our line; Done, we have filed the amendment; Our figures are right, please check yours; Please send your CSN number and date, or the MCIN / PCIN — and can add a short note. The reply lands on your timeline as theirs, marked, and you get a Reply from the other side alert in the bell, and by e-mail unless you turned it off in Settings → Alerts. It changes nothing else: the status and who holds the next step stay yours to set. Their reply is shown to them and to you, never to another party on the case, and a note is plain text with any web address removed. A CSN reference card link takes the same answers (without the request for the reference, which the card already carries), listed under Replies on the filing's Handshake links page.

This is a reply box, not a chat: nobody has to be online, and the answer stays with the bill it is about, rather than in a message thread nobody else can find.

Does the page ask customs anything?

The page itself reads what SCMTR already holds. The checks that do ask customs' public record — the bills board's watch, a refusal explained line by line, a whole-manifest check — say so where they run, and say when they last asked. A value on the page is what customs' record showed at that time, not a live reading.

Related

Why is my container held? Reading Bills and containersCustoms refused my manifest — which bills, and why?Amending a shipping line filingIdentifiers and tracking — VCN, rotation number, MCIN and PCIN

This page is for information. Customs decides what it accepts — confirm anything that matters with customs or ICEGATE.