Control, Confidence, and Cash Flow: Turning Duty Drawback into a Global Finance Strategy

Client Profile: A Global Retail Giant

Industry: Retail & Supply Chain

Challenge: Fragmented duty recovery processes across a massive supplier network.

Solution: A centralized, digitized drawback program to unlock liquidity and ensure compliance.

The Challenge: The Hidden Cost of Complexity

For a global retailer, scale is the ultimate competitive advantage. But when it comes to trade compliance, scale often creates a hidden inefficiency: fragmentation.

Our client moves millions of products a week through a "living organism" of a supply chain—thousands of suppliers, multiple product categories, and constant movement through ports and export lanes. Every product carries its own HTS classification and import record.

While the opportunity for Duty Drawback (refunding duties on imported goods that are later exported) was massive, the process was chaotic.

• Decentralized Data: Different divisions used different brokers and spreadsheets.

• Inconsistent Rules: Suppliers managed drawback differently, leading to incomplete assignments.

• Financial Opacity: Refunds took months to reconcile, making them impossible to forecast.

"We had the right people, but not the right system," says Cassandra H., Trade Finance Manager. "It was compliant, but it wasn’t cohesive. We were leaving margins on the table simply because we couldn't see the full picture."

GingerControl’s brief: Standardize the process, protect compliance integrity, and turn drawback into a predictable liquidity lever.

The Solution: Governance by Design

To move from "chaos" to "control," GC partnered with the client’s finance and compliance leaders to build a single, unified framework: one policy, one process, and one technology platform.

1. The Compliance Playbook

The cornerstone of the transformation was governance. We established a "Duty Drawback Playbook" that defined standards for every participant—suppliers, logistics partners, and internal teams.

• Standardized HTS and claim documentation requirements.

• Clear protocols for "proof-of-export" and waiver assignments.

• Automated checks for bond sufficiency and audit triggers.

The Shift: Entitlement tracking moved from manual emails to digital, traceable assignments stored directly with the claim.

2. The Digital Backbone (ACE Integration)

Policy needs technology to scale. GC assisted in deploying a digital backbone that connected directly to CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).

• Unified Data: Import entries, export documentation, and entitlement certificates are now pulled into a single workflow.

• Automated Validation: Validation checks run automatically before submission, flagging discrepancies in HTS codes or timing windows immediately.

3. Financial Visibility

The most critical shift for the CFO was visibility. Executives can now see refund forecasts, claim statuses, and bond utilization in real-time.

• Forecasting: Refunds are no longer "found money"—they are predictable income streams budgeted into quarterly reports.

• Liquidity: Treasury teams use refund timing to optimize short-term cash flow.

The Results: Saving Duties Compliantly

Within the first year of implementation, the transformation delivered measurable financial impact:

• 99.9% Claim Acceptance Rate: Minimizing rejection risks.

• Accelerated Liquidity: Refund timing improved by over 50%, aligning with AP payout schedules.

• Audit Readiness: Every claim carries a digital "audit pack." If CBP requests verification, the client can respond immediately with a clear, chronological record.

"For a company our size, it’s not just about saving money," says Cassandra. "It’s about knowing exactly where our capital is tied up and how fast we can release it. GingerControl turned a back-office task into a strategic finance function."

The GingerControl Difference

We believe that compliance should not slow businesses down; it should make them faster. By combining deep regulatory expertise with data automation, GingerControl builds systems that perform under pressure and scale with growth.

For this Global Retail Giant, we turned a fragmented, manual process into a centralized strategy that saves duties compliantly.