Importer recovery readiness checklist
Use this checklist before calling tariff cost a recovery opportunity.
Importers can move faster when finance, operations, logistics, and trade-compliance teams know which records must exist before a serious specialist conversation.
1. Materiality.
- Annual duty and tariff spend is separated from freight, brokerage, demurrage, and other landed-cost items.
- The company can identify which product lines or business units carry the biggest tariff impact.
- Finance can explain how duty and tariff cost flows into inventory, COGS, or margin reporting.
2. Traceability.
- Line-level import records are available from broker, ACE, ERP, or landed-cost systems.
- Records include usable keys such as SKU, item, invoice, shipment, PO, lot, serial, BOM, or date windows.
- Downstream activity can be compared against import activity without inventing a match.
3. Control.
- Record owners are named before source files move.
- Confidential files are not sent by ordinary email.
- Leadership understands that claim-facing work belongs with qualified professionals.
4. Handoff.
A good handoff packet should include a source-system map, materiality estimate, sample field list, data gaps, match-rate limits, stop conditions, and questions for a licensed broker, attorney, CPA, or other qualified specialist as appropriate.
Trade Recovery Data provides a data-readiness screen only. It does not provide legal advice, customs brokerage, HTS classification, claim preparation, claim filing, eligibility opinions, or refund guarantees.
Related: tariff cost recovery checklist, tariff exposure analysis for importers, and landed cost margin leakage.