Building a Scalable Customs Setup with CAS

UW Home carried out a detailed market review before choosing CAS. Alex evaluated around seven providers, arranged demos, gathered quotes, and built a structured benchmark to compare automation, Special Procedures capability, usability, and long-term fit. CAS scored highest across the board.

“I did full benchmarking. I looked at every major provider and scored each system. CAS came out on top for user experience and functionality. Coming from a freight and customs background, I knew exactly what we needed. CAS brought everything together, which was key for us,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics & Customs Manager at UW Home.

A key factor was usability. Other tools felt outdated, confusing, or limited in scale. CAS stood out for a clear and intuitive interface that made sense straight away.

“The User Interface made a huge difference. With CAS, you look at it and you understand where things are. It’s intuitive. I could see myself training a team on it without needing a manual,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics & Customs Manager at UW Home.

Flexibility also mattered. UW Home needed a system that could grow with changing volumes, new flows, and more complex operations. CAS offered that flexibility, along with a team that matched UW Home’s working style.

“The people were a big part of it. The approach felt right. Good conversations, straight answers, and a way of working that matched how we operate,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics & Customs Manager at UW Home.

When the commercial terms were aligned and the internal approval obtained, UW Home moved quickly. Implementation took only six to eight weeks, making it one of the fastest CAS Special Procedures projects to date.

“We went live fast. It was hands-on, focused, and efficient. Me and C4T’s Steven Rutter got it over the line together. The extensive knowledge on both sides made it possible,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics & Customs Manager at UW Home.

UW Home now runs its UK imports, re-exports, and customs warehousing in CAS. The next step is to move Inward Processing into the same system. This shift matters because the team wants all Special Procedures controlled in one place instead of spread across multiple spreadsheets and manual reports.

“Having Inward Processing in CAS is a big deal for us. Right now, it lives in messy spreadsheets and it takes a lot of time to administer. We’re not as on top of it as we should be. Once it sits in CAS, I can train the team and they can run it more efficiently,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics and Customs Manager at UW Home.

Combining Customs Warehousing and Inward Processing (IP) in one platform will give the team a single view of all duty-suspended stock, movements, and declarations. It will also remove the manual steps that slow them down today. UW Home has already seen how CAS connects data and automates core processes inside the customs warehouse. Moving IP into the same environment will close the remaining gaps and create one consistent flow for duty management.

“Having everything in one place gives us confidence. We can see what’s happening, fix issues fast, and stay compliant,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics and Customs Manager at UW Home.

Since going live, UW Home has reshaped how it manages customs operations. Moving over to CAS removed manual steps, improved accuracy, and gave the team full control over daily flows.

Automation and control
Before CAS, errors were frequent and slowed the team down. Today, CAS runs most processes automatically and catches issues before submission.

“We used to find errors in up to 20% of our EIDR removals. Now there are hardly any. CAS runs smoothly and is almost zero-touch. Our statistics show our EIDR removals are 99.9 percent error-free with CAS,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics and Customs Manager at UW Home.

CAS has also made it easy for the team to stay on top of work that used to fall behind. Customs warehouse administration was often pushed aside in favour of urgent shipments and customer orders. At month end, the team had to catch up under pressure. That burden is now gone.

“It’s a breath of fresh air. We click a button, our ERP system creates the ingest file, and we drag it in CAS. Booking in a container takes 20 to 30 seconds. Before, it could take up to 30 minutes. It’s so much easier to stay on top of things,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics and Customs Manager at UW Home.

Real-time processing also means the customs warehouse is always up to date, without the month-end backlog that used to drain time.

Having both Customs Warehousing and Inward Processing together in one system will add another layer of control in the future. The team can trace movements, declarations, and duty payments instantly.

“With CAS, we can track everything from stock movements to declarations. That visibility helps us stay compliant and make faster decisions,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics and Customs Manager at UW Home.

Data accuracy and confidence
CAS enforces data quality and gives UW Home consistent, reliable figures. This has strengthened their financial reporting and improved trust in compliance data.

“We can rely on the data completely. CAS enforces accuracy and gives us a clear, real-time picture of our customs operations,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics and Customs Manager at UW Home.

The end-to-end automation also brings peace of mind. Once shipment data is uploaded, CAS takes over.

“It gives us peace of mind knowing that as soon as a file loads in, the system’s going to do everything. We don’t need to worry anymore. It just works,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics and Customs Manager at UW Home. He adds, “The automation side of it is a breath of fresh air. It makes a huge difference. It cuts down on admin time, and that’s valuable as I like things clean and simple.”

Financial impact
The biggest financial gain has come from Inward Processing. Duty savings have almost doubled compared to before, as CAS automatically applies the correct duty suspension and recovery.

“Our IP savings will nearly double once we switch to CAS. We’re now capturing benefits that were being missed before,” said Alex Robinson, Logistics & Customs Manager at UW Home.