Find the Compliance Gaps
Identify Gaps Before CBSA Does, and Let Your Duty Recoveries Pay for the Project
A structured assessment of your Trade Compliance against CBSA expectations. A risk-ranked remediation plan. And, in many cases, enough recovered duty to fund the entire engagement and the resulting compliance investments. Across one recent client engagement, we recovered over $3 million in duty refunds while concurrently building their internal customs department from the ground up.
Who This Program Is For
Importers concerned that gaps may exist in their Trade Compliance systems and processes.
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Companies whose recent growth or acquisitions have outpaced their compliance infrastructure.
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Companies surprised by the results of an internal or external customs review and worried about what else might surface.
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Companies anticipating a CBSA Trade Verification Review and wanting to identify exposure first.
A Recent Result: From Crisis to Capability
A rapidly growing automotive parts distributor came to us when their volume had outpaced what their external customs broker could effectively manage. They needed an internal customs department but didn't know where to start, what gaps existed in their current operation, or how to fund the build.
We ran a Trade Compliance Benchmarking Program across all stakeholder groups in their supply chain, procurement, transportation, supply chain, finance, and customs, using over thirty industry-specific questionnaires combined with stakeholder interviews. We identified gaps, scored each one for likelihood and impact, and plotted them on a Risk Assessment Matrix. The highest-risk items received a 10-step mitigation plan closing the highest risk gaps within 12-months.
Concurrently, our Duty Recovery team ran an independent program that identified over $3 million in recoverable duty and projected over $9 million in future import savings - funding both the benchmarking project and the client’s tailored trade compliance solution (including systems and personnel).
How the Program Works
The program is designed to have minimal impact on your day-to-day operations. Based on your business model, we deploy the relevant subset of our 30+ industry-specific questionnaires to capture your import and export operations. Stakeholder interviews fill in any remaining gaps. The data is then analyzed to identify potential Trade Compliance gaps and improvement opportunities.
Each gap is scored against a Risk Scoring Matrix and ranked into one of three categories:
High Risk: to be addressed within 12 months.
Moderate Risk: to be addressed within 13–24 months.
Low Risk: for future consideration as best practices.
High Risk: to be addressed within 12 months.
Moderate Risk: to be addressed within 13–24 months.
Low Risk: for future consideration under risk mitigation strategies.
A comprehensive final report documents every finding and includes a specific mitigation strategy for each high-risk observation. Our objective is to move as many gaps as possible into the green (low risk) zone.
Our reporting portal gives you full real-time visibility into the program's progress, with the ability to provide feedback or ask questions on your schedule. Your team can stay focused on day-to-day operations while monitoring the engagement when convenient.
You will be assigned a dedicated Dominion Customs Solutions program manager from kickoff through final presentation, with continued support during the remediation of high-risk findings. We are with you for the full lifecycle, not just the assessment phase.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most engagements run 60–120 days from kickoff to final report, depending on the complexity and number of business units involved. The remediation phase that follows is sized based on the high-risk findings.
Yes—we recommend it! The two programs run on parallel tracks with separate teams and do not interfere with each other. Recovered duty often funds the trade compliance investments the benchmarking identifies.
We document it, risk-rank it, and propose a remediation path with a clear timeline. In some cases, a no-name or named voluntary disclosure to the CBSA could be the right strategy, and we can manage that process. The decision is always yours, made with our full advisory support.