Excise and Customs Clerk

Overall Responsibility: 

The Customs & Excise Clerk supports the Customs & Excise Controller in ensuring full compliance with customs, excise, and regulatory requirements relating to the movement, production, storage, and reporting of excisable goods.

The role is responsible for maintaining accurate documentation, assisting with duty calculations and reconciliations, and ensuring that all imports, exports, bonded movements, and excise activities are correctly recorded and compliant with the requirements of the South African Revenue Service and the Customs and Excise Act No. 91 of 1964. The position plays a key role in maintaining audit-ready records and minimizing compliance risk while supporting operational efficiency across production, logistics, and finance.

Focus Area 1: Customs Compliance:

Assist the Customs & Excise Controller in ensuring compliance with all applicable customs and excise legislation and regulatory requirements.

Capture and maintain accurate customs documentation relating to imports, exports, and bonded movements.

Assist with verifying tariff classifications, product descriptions, and values used in customs declarations.

Maintain organised and accessible records of customs documentation for audit or inspection.

Escalate discrepancies or potential compliance risks identified during documentation review.

Focus area 2: Excise Duty Administration:

Assist with monitoring production, removals, and transfers of excisable goods to ensure excise duties are correctly accounted for.

Support the preparation and maintenance of excise duty records and excise warehouse registers.

Assist with compiling supporting documentation required for excise submissions and reconciliations.

Maintain accurate records of excise movements and ensure alignment with production and distribution data.

Support reconciliation of declared volumes against production and dispatch records.

Focus Area 3: Import and Export Documentation:

Prepare and maintain documentation for the import and export of raw materials, packaging materials, and finished goods.

Assist with preparing and verifying documents such as:

Bills of entry

Commercial invoices

Packing lists

Certificates of origin

Customs clearance documentation

Track shipments and ensure that required customs documentation is submitted on time to avoid clearance delays or penalties.

Maintain accurate filing and record management of all import and export documentation.

Focus Area 4: Inventory Control & Bonded Warehouse Monitoring:

Assist with monitoring inventory and stock movement records for excisable goods within bonded and duty-paid warehouses.

Maintain accurate records for bonded movements and transfers between warehouses.

Support reconciliation of excise stock against production, warehouse, and dispatch records.

Assist in preparing excise-related reports to ensure reconciliation accuracy and compliance readiness

Focus Area 5: Audit and Risk Management:

Assist in preparing documentation for internal and external customs and excise audits.

Ensure all required records and supporting documents are accurate, complete, and readily accessible.

Identify discrepancies in documentation, stock movements, or duty records and report these to the Customs & Excise Controller.

Maintain documentation that supports full audit traceability.

Focus Area 6: Administrative Support & Internal Coordination

Provide administrative support to the Customs & Excise Controller.

Assist with responding to internal requests for customs and excise information or documentation.

Facilitate coordination between internal departments including:

Production

Logistics

Finance

Procurement

Focus Area 7: Process & Documentation Improvement:

Maintain accurate registers and documentation related to customs and excise activities.

Support improvements to documentation, record-keeping, and compliance processes.

Ensure documentation standards remain aligned with regulatory and internal compliance requirements.

Key Stakeholders

External

South African Revenue Service

Customs Clearing Agents

Freight Forwarders

External Auditors

Requirements of the Role

Educational Requirements:

A degree in Business, Logistics, Accounting, Supply Chain Management or a related field.

Additional certifications in customs, excise, or trade compliance are advantageous.

Experience:

Experience in customs compliance, excise administration, or logistics will be advantageous.

Exposure to manufacturing or beverage production environments is beneficial.

Understanding of how production processes interact with excise reporting and bonded warehouse controls is advantageous.

Key Skills:

Technical

Customs documentation

Excise duty administration

Inventory reconciliation

Regulatory compliance

ERP systems (SAP / Syspro / similar)

Advanced Excel

Behavioural

Strong attention to detail

High integrity and confidentiality

Strong organisational skills

Ability to work with regulatory deadlines

Analytical and problem-solving capability