The UK Electronic Trade Documents Act is here. Are you ready to go paperless and digitise your trade document process?

Everyone in the trade process will benefit.  

In an export transaction, the carrier or the freight forwarder issues the digital bill of lading. Within a few minutes, the exporter takes possession of the original and adds the needed trade documents such as invoice, packing list and relevant certificates. When completed the exporter digitally transfers the documents to the importer and/or the bank. The importer can then either pass on the digital documents to a shipping agent, customs and of course to the carrier to release the goods. 

For companies, especially SMEs, it will also be an enabler for improved efficiency and access to working capital management. 

By using a digital bill of exchange, for example, created with trace:original, it will be affordable and easy to set up and execute a transaction. Smaller amounts and short-term receivables are becoming financeable. 

The most significant issue to widespread adoption is the vast number of different stakeholders and parties that need to embrace change. Global trade is a fragmented and complex ecosystem, with countless parties interacting across hundreds of markets. Paper documents and manual processes are long-established, universally understood and trusted. 

With trace:original, the digital process mimics the paper process. Up to the point of printing the document, the processes are the same with the same workflows and the same documents and forms. However, instead of printing the document on physical paper, you create a trace:original digital original document that can be electronically signed and sent digitally. Should there be a need, trace:original documents can also be securely converted to physical documents

Creating electronic trade documents doesn’t have to require a long and expensive onboarding nor an IT project.​ 
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With trace:original we made it possible to start creating electronic trade documents without system integration. You can continue with your current workflow, using the same documents, but instead of printing them on paper, you “print” PDFs digitally and get electronic original documents that can then be electronically signed, transferred, sold, and invalidated. It’s your current process, but digital. This makes the change to paperless, cost efficient and effortless.  

With trace:original, you can use the same forms and documents that you use today, but instead of printing them on paper, they are "printed" as digital original files, that can be electronically signed, appended, transferred and invalidated, just like their paper equivalents. The trace:original document combines PDF and structured data. Therefore, it is both human readable, recognizable and compatible with current processes and machine readable (interoperability) with possibility to incorporate industry data standards, e.g. JSON data schemas. 

It is not always possible to foresee all stakeholders that may come into possession of documents or need to verify the documents. Make sure that the solution you choose also works for your customers and everyone else that might be involved in a document transaction, without requiring onboarding or additional infrastructure. 

With trace:original, we solved this by making it possible for anyone to receive, validate, manage, and transfer trace:original documents at a free public web service, traceoriginal.com.  The service requires no onboarding and is accessible with any computer with an internet connection.  

During the document’s lifecycle, new terms might be added or changed, that might require additional signatures. One such example is when a document needs to be endorsed. 

In order to be able to cover all possible use cases and being able to replicate your current paper process, make sure it is possible to add new additions to the electronic original while maintaining full integrity audit trail and security of its history. The Electronic Trade Documents Act requires that it should be possible to add new text and signatures to a trade document, but it should not be possible to remove any content for the document to be legally enforceable.