Tips
Tips and troubleshooting
The settings and habits that genuinely improve a classification, and what to do about the most common errors in the assistant and HS search.
What follows does not repeat the guides: only what actually improves a result, and what to do when something blocks.
Getting better answers from the assistant
Name the material, the function and the presentation
Three pieces of information decide almost every classification. Giving them in the first message saves two or three rounds:
- Constituent material: the exact material, not the family.
Polypropylenerather thanplastic,solid oakrather thanwood. - Function: what the object is for, and in what setting: domestic, professional, industrial.
- Presentation: assembled or knocked down, in bulk or put up for retail sale, on its own or as a set.
Origin, brand, price and quantity, by contrast, play no part in HS classification: they eat into the 200 characters without adding anything.
Match the research level to the stakes
Basic for an ordinary, unambiguous product. Advanced as soon as two headings compete for it. Expert for disputed or high-value files. It is the slowest mode, so keep it for cases that deserve it.
Running everything on Expert does not improve an obvious classification, and it burns the monthly quota just as fast as a hard question does.
Answer the suggested questions instead of rewriting
The questions shown under an answer target exactly the information missing to go one level more precise. One click beats a new message written from scratch, which often walks back onto a path already ruled out.
One conversation per product
The assistant takes everything earlier in the conversation into account. That helps while you are on the same product and hurts the moment you switch: the previous description keeps colouring the classification. Start a new chat for each new product.
An image does not replace a sentence
A photo shows a shape, not a material or a function. Attach it with a line of description. Frame the product alone on a neutral background and make composition labels legible. Reminder: one image per message, 5 MB maximum, PNG, JPEG, GIF, WEBP and SVG.
Finding things faster in the nomenclature
Search the tariff's word, not the trade's
The nomenclature ignores marketing vocabulary. Seat will return results where gaming armchair returns none. A fruitless search is almost always fixed by removing words.
Browse the tree when the vocabulary escapes you
If the official term is unknown, browsing section → chapter → code is safer than a string of keyword attempts: the chapter title itself tells you the vocabulary to use.
Ask the assistant for the vocabulary
"What term does the nomenclature use for this kind of article?" The answer gives you the words to type into search.
Use Ctrl + K
Ctrl + K (⌘ + K on Mac) opens global search from any page and finds both features and HS codes.
Making decisions reproducible
The note is worth as much as the code
A code saved without a note is a code you will have to re-verify. Record it at the moment of the decision: the product reference, the code you rejected and why, the explanatory note or ruling you relied on.
Six months later, facing an audit or a colleague, that one line is the difference between a defensible classification and a piece of work to redo.
Record the doubt, not only the conclusion
When two codes stayed plausible, say so. A product classified the same way six times running holds up far better than a run of inconsistent classifications for one article.
Troubleshooting
The proposed code looks wrong
Most often the description was misread upstream. Reread the introduction of the answer: if the material or function is wrong there, correct that one point in your next message rather than rewriting everything.
Only then: open the code page, read the whole official description and its notes. If the product is explicitly excluded, tell the assistant, and it will start again from another heading.
Several codes are possible and none stands out
Put the candidates through the comparison and read the notes for each: the distinction is nearly always there. If the ambiguity survives, rerun on Expert, then have a customs professional settle high-stakes files.
The product cannot be found in search
Cut the query to one or two words, drop the qualifiers, try the material rather than the object. Remember: search starts at 3 characters and returns at most 50 results. Too generic a query truncates relevant lines, and too precise a one returns nothing.
A product with no heading of its own usually falls into a residual ("other") heading of the relevant chapter: the assistant is better than keyword search at pinning that down.
"Too many requests" in search
A high request rate triggers a temporary block. The Verify and continue button runs an anti-robot check and restores access immediately. In the assistant, the same protection appears as a wait once you pass 20 messages a minute.
The monthly quota is used up
The counter at the top of the assistant shows the month's usage. Once the quota is spent, search, code pages and comparison remain fully available: only answer generation is suspended. See Billing for each plan's limits.
The answer is slow
On Advanced or Expert, analysis regularly runs past a minute. The list of steps shows the real work, and Pass 2 marks a second round of verification. You can leave the page: a notification tells you when the answer is ready.