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No electronic delivery document waits for its report of receipt until the last day

Excise movements closed on time, duty under control

A robot monitors open movement documents in EMCS via PUESC, matches them to ERP receipts, files reports of receipt where everything agrees, and raises discrepancies and approaching deadlines to people with a day countdown.

DepartmentalMicrosoft TeamsHuman in the loopDeterministic automation
420excise movements a month pass through this model tax warehouse; each rides on an electronic document with deadlines whose breach shifts the burden of proof, and sometimes the duty itself, onto the company.

Executive summary

Challenge

Movements under duty suspension and under exemptions ride on e-AD and e-DD documents with hard deadlines for reports of receipt. They are watched by a spreadsheet kept next to the real work.

What changes

The robot lines up open PUESC documents with ERP receipts and files reports of receipt for matching deliveries; people see only discrepancies and deadlines.

Business value

A document with no matching receipt, a quantity difference or an approaching deadline is a case with a day countdown, not a discovery upon a letter from the authority.

Systems involved

PUESC/EMCS PL2; receipts and excise records in the ERP; cases and the deadline counter in Microsoft Teams

Business problem

Deadlines that do not negotiate

Excise goods move on electronic documents: e-AD under duty suspension and e-DD for deliveries under exemption or zero rate. EMCS, reachable in Poland through PUESC, gives every movement a number and deadlines: for delivery and for the report of receipt afterwards. These are not housekeeping dates; missing them triggers questions about the goods’ fate, and in a bad scenario an obligation to pay duty on goods that would normally travel without it.

In the daily life of a tax warehouse these documents compete for attention with everything else: receipts, issues, records. Someone keeps a list of open movements in a spreadsheet, someone checks PUESC “when possible”, and reports of receipt are filed in batches once a few pile up. The system works as long as volume is low and nobody is ill.

Discrepancies are a problem of their own: an ERP receipt of 29,850 litres against a document for 30,000 needs a qualified report, and the decision whether the difference is natural loss or a case needs data from two systems at once. Done by hand, it gets postponed, and postponement eats the deadline.

Worst of all, the exposure is invisible from outside the process: until someone counts open documents by age and deadline, the company does not know how much duty-at-risk it is sitting on. That number exists in EMCS; nobody looks at it daily.

How it works today

Below is what the work looks like before anything is automated.

  1. PersonSomeone logs into PUESC and reviews open movements when a moment allows
  2. PersonThe list of open documents lives in a spreadsheet, updated by hand after each session
  3. Risk of errorERP receipts and EMCS documents are never lined up systematically, so discrepancies wait
  4. WaitingReports of receipt are filed in batches, and a document without one quietly eats its deadline
  5. Risk of errorA quantity difference needs a decision with data from two systems; postponed, it matures into a problem
  6. Risk of errorThe company learns about a missed deadline from a letter, not from its own report
PersonRisk of errorWaiting

Why the current process costs more than it appears

The bill that never shows up in a budget.

  • Duty-at-risk in open documents is a real, countable amount nobody counts today, so management learns of it in the worst possible mode: during a problem.
  • A qualified report of receipt filed on time is a formality; the same report after the deadline is correspondence, explanations and the burden of proof on the company.
  • The person keeping the spreadsheet is a single point of failure in a process with tax consequences; their holiday is not an organisational issue but an exposure.
  • The daily time spent browsing PUESC and gluing the spreadsheet is constant, and achieves nothing except compensating for a missing integration.

Cost of inaction

Yearly time for manual monitoring and reports of receipt≈ €15,800
Duty-at-risk in documents open beyond 5 days (at a moment, model)≈ €340,000
One movement closed after its deadlineconsequences follow from the law; outside this page’s arithmetic

The middle row is not a cost but an exposure: the amount of suspended duty in documents waiting longer than they should. It is not paid yearly; it hangs over every week the process limps. The model shows an order of magnitude for the scenario; your number sits in EMCS and can be counted today.

The third row deliberately has no amount: the effects of missed excise deadlines depend on circumstances and on law this page does not interpret. It is enough that they are asymmetric against the cost of watching deadlines automatically.

Illustrative scenario

A model organisation with realistic proportions – the numbers exist so you can run the same maths on your own data; they are not a client result.

Organisation

A tax warehouse at a fuel depot: receipts under duty suspension from a refinery and from imports, issues to exempt customers on e-DD, SAP as the ERP with excise records, Microsoft 365, two people running excise administration.

Volume

420 movements a month: about 300 inbound e-ADs, 120 outbound e-DDs, including standing exempt customers and seasonal peaks.

Current process

Daily PUESC sessions, a spreadsheet of open documents, reports of receipt in batches every two-three days, discrepancies clarified with the warehouse by email.

Bottleneck

About 70 hours a month on monitoring and reports; no single view of exposure; two movements last year closed after the deadline, both spotted by the authority, not the company.

Solution

The robot cyclically pulls document status from PUESC, matches it to SAP receipts and issues, files reports of receipt for matching deliveries, and raises discrepancies and documents nearing deadlines as cases with a day countdown and data from both systems.

Potential outcome

In the modelled case no document waits for its report longer than a day from receipt, exposure is a number on a board, and the two excise people work on exceptions rather than list-reading. Model numbers, not anyone’s ledgers.

Proposed solution

We start with a movement map: which document types travel in your business, with whom, on what deadlines, and what “a matching receipt” means in practice (quantity tolerances, natural loss per product). This map, written down with your excise owner, becomes the automation’s rule and has versions.

On an hourly cycle the robot pulls the state of open documents from PUESC and lines them up with ERP receipts and issues. Where quantities and data agree within tolerance, it files the report of receipt and notes the closure in an auxiliary record. A document without a match, a difference above tolerance or a deadline closer than the warning threshold becomes a Microsoft Teams case with data from both systems and a day countdown.

A person decides every qualified report and every disputed case; the robot makes sure the decision happens before the deadline, escalating quietly but effectively. The exposure board shows open documents by age, deadline and the amount of suspended duty, so “how much is hanging” has an answer at any moment.

Native capabilities used

UiPath Orchestrator: cyclic runs, a document queue, retries and an audit trail; UiPath Integration Service connectors for Microsoft Teams and Outlook 365; UiPath Action Center cases; a Microsoft Power BI board on a Teams channel

What we build

The matching rule with per-product tolerances, document-to-event matching, automatic reports of receipt for matching deliveries, cases with a day countdown, and the exposure board with the suspended duty amount

Dedicated integrations

EMCS exchange via PUESC web services per the published specification, or via the excise tool you already use; receipts, issues and records from SAP via documented interfaces

How the automated process works

  1. AutomationEvery hour the robot pulls the state of open e-ADs and e-DDs from PUESC
  2. AutomationEach document is matched to an ERP receipt or issue by the rule with tolerances
  3. AutomationFor matching deliveries the robot files the report of receipt and records the closure
  4. PersonA difference above tolerance goes to excise as a case with both systems’ data; a qualified report is approved by a person
  5. SystemDocuments nearing their deadline raise priority and escalate until someone decides
  6. PersonThe exposure board shows open documents by age, deadline and suspended duty amount
AutomationPersonSystem

Human-in-the-loop model

Automation handles

  • Cyclic EMCS monitoring and matching of documents to ERP events
  • Reports of receipt for deliveries matching within tolerance, and closure records
  • Deadline counters, escalations and the exposure board with the duty amount

People decide

  • Tolerances and the matching rule per product, and every change to them
  • Every qualified report and every disputed case with a counterparty
  • Contacts with the authority and decisions in situations the rule does not foresee

Before and after

BeforeAfter
Monitoring open documentsPUESC sessions and a spreadsheet, time permittingan hourly automatic cycle with a board
Report of receipt for a matching deliveryin a batch, every two-three dayswithin hours of the receipt
Quantity discrepanciesemails to the warehouse, decision postponeda case with both systems’ data and a day countdown
Excise exposureunknown until a probleman amount on a board, refreshed hourly

Systems and integrations

The stack is short on purpose: one engine, one execution layer, one place where a person decides.

Inputs

  • open e-ADs and e-DDs from PUESC
  • receipts and issues in the ERP
  • the matching rule with per-product tolerances
  • excise records

Automation layer

  • UiPath Orchestrator
  • UiPath Robots
  • UiPath Integration Service
  • UiPath Action Center

Target systems

  • reports of receipt in EMCS
  • discrepancy cases in Microsoft Teams
  • the exposure board with suspended duty

Human touchpoints: UiPath Action Center cases in Microsoft Teams; the exposure board as a Teams tab; a quarterly tolerance review with excise

open documents from PUESC and ERP eventsUiPath OrchestratorUiPath Robotsreports of receipt and the closure recordcases and the exposure board in Microsoft Teams

Technologies used

UiPath Robots + Orchestrator

an hourly cycle, a document queue, retries, credential store, audit

A
UiPath Integration Service (Teams and Outlook 365 connectors)

cases, escalations and counterparty correspondence on discrepancies

A
UiPath Action Center in Microsoft Teams

qualified-report approvals where the excise team already works

A
Microsoft Power BI, published to a Teams channel

the exposure board: documents by age, deadline and duty amount

A
PUESC / EMCS PL2

the documented web-service channel to the movement system: two-way XML per the published specification, with a test environment

B
Averified product capability (vendor documentation)Bverified external source

How we deliver this

From this description to a running process

We deliver this solution through our process automation service: first we measure the process on company data, then we build, test and maintain the robots. SAP integration is handled by our SAP team.

Case studies

Delivered client work is described under Case studies.

Illustrative economic model

Numbers you can check against your own data.

Illustrative model
420 movements × 10 minutes of monitoring, matching and reporting≈ 70 h / month
70 h × €28 full hourly cost of the excise team≈ €1,960 / month
× 12 months≈ €23,500 / year
Yearly excise-team time on repetitive work (illustrative)≈ €23,500

The arithmetic covers time only, because that is the one line that can honestly be summed. The real stake is in the row that is not here: the difference between a qualified report filed on time and the same report after the deadline. €28 an hour is an example full cost of a seat; the volume belongs to the scenario.

Run the numbers on your data

hours to recover monthly
of annual capacity to recover

An illustrative estimate based on your inputs. It models freed capacity, not promised savings.

Business benefits

  • Reports of receipt for matching deliveries take hours, not days, and do not depend on who has time
  • Discrepancies come with both systems’ data at once, so decisions happen before the deadline starts to bite
  • Excise exposure is a number on a board, not a surprise in a letter
  • Auxiliary records reconcile with EMCS because closures are written at report time
  • The excise team works on exceptions, and its knowledge goes into tolerances and cases, not into list-reading

The management view

  • The tax risk of movements stops depending on a spreadsheet and two people’s memory
  • Every document has a history: the match, the report, qualifications, decisions and names
  • “How much duty hangs in open documents” has an answer at any moment, not once per crisis

Board-level KPIs

documents closed within the deadline · median hours from receipt to report of receipt · suspended duty in documents open beyond the threshold · qualified reports and their outcomes · discrepancy cases open beyond 3 days

Security and governance

The automation has exactly the permissions it needs. Not one more.

  • The PUESC exchange runs over documented web services, with a separate technical identity and a full two-way message log
  • The robot posts nothing in the ERP; it reads events and keeps an auxiliary closure record, and qualified reports are always approved by a person
  • The matching rule and tolerances are versioned; every report records the version that decided it
  • Personal data is limited to the fields the movement documents require; the board deals in document numbers
  • Cases and boards stay in your Microsoft 365 tenant, and the robots run in the EU region of UiPath Automation Cloud

Why now

01

EMCS is by nature a system of deadlines: the whole construction of duty suspension rests on closing documents within time windows. A manual process plays against the system’s design.

02

The state side is well documented: PUESC publishes web-service specifications and provides a test environment. The integration is building to a manual, not exploration.

03

Movement volumes grow with every new exempt customer, and every new customer means new e-DDs and new deadlines. A spreadsheet scales linearly in cost and exponentially in risk.

Relevant executive roles

Chief financial officer

The suspended duty amount in open documents becomes a managed number rather than a discovery

Tax warehouse manager

Reports of receipt stop competing with operations; what remains are decisions that truly need a person

Excise officer

Instead of watching a list, they watch rules and exceptions, with a history of every decision

Common questions and objections

We have an excise tool, it sends the messages.

Let it: then we do not rebuild the sending. The gaps are usually around the tool: nobody lines documents up with ERP receipts, nobody counts exposure and nobody escalates deadlines. The automation closes that circuit, and the existing tool remains the channel.

Our discrepancies need expertise, a robot will not resolve them.

And it is not meant to. The robot resolves only what matches within tolerance, that is, the boredom; a discrepancy receives the full data from both systems and waits for a person. What changes is not who decides but how long it takes to hand them the grounds for the decision.

We are afraid of automation in a tax system.

Sensibly so. That is why the automation’s scope is narrow and written down: a report of receipt for a delivery matching within a tolerance you approved as a rule. Everything else, qualifications, disputes, exceptions, passes through a person, and every message has a full log.

When this is not the right solution

  • A dozen movements a month: discipline and a calendar will do, the integration will not pay back
  • Trade exclusively in duty-paid goods, with no warehouse, suspensions or exemptions: the process does not occur
  • No agreement to any tolerances: if every quantity difference must be a manual case, the automation closes only perfect deliveries and the value collapses

A question for the next management meeting

What is today’s amount of suspended duty in our open movement documents, and after how many days would we learn about a document that got stuck?

Implementation approach

Scope without ambiguity, before anything is signed.

We deliver

  • The movement map and the matching rule with tolerances, written down with the excise team
  • Cyclic EMCS monitoring matched to ERP events
  • Automatic reports of receipt for matching deliveries and countdown cases for the rest
  • The exposure board with suspended duty by document age and deadline
  • A parallel run through one month of movements and post-go-live care

We need from you

  • Three months of movement history from PUESC and the corresponding ERP receipts and issues
  • The excise officer as owner of the matching rule and tolerances
  • Access to the PUESC test environment and a technical account for the ERP

Stages

Discovery

A month of movements reconstructed document by document: types, deadlines, discrepancies, closure times

Rules

Per-product tolerances and qualified-report principles approved by excise

Build

The PUESC exchange, ERP matching, reports, cases and the exposure board

Parallel run

The robot matches and prepares, people file as before; differences explained document by document

Go-live

Automatic reports for matching deliveries, one stream first, then all

Effort depends on whether you use PUESC web services directly or via an existing tool, and on the cleanliness of receipt data in the ERP.

The document from the fifteenth got stuck without a report. On the twenty-third the authority noticed it, not us.

Send us the list of open movements from the last three months and the matching receipts. We return an analysis: what would have closed automatically, which discrepancies would have waited for your decision, and what the exposure board would look like.

Show us your open documents

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