17th International Logistics Total Expo 2026 (LTT2026) exhibitor series, Part 11
Digitalising trade usually starts as a story about seeing. Where the vessel is now. Where the paperwork has stalled. Who asked for what.
But once it is on a screen, what changes is not only how you see it. The form of what you have to keep changes too.
First, what the Customs Act requires
Anyone importing as a business has duties of books and documents. Article 94(1) of Japan's Customs Act requires a person who imports, as a business, goods to which the self-assessment system applies to keep "books recording the name, quantity and value of the goods and other necessary matters" and to preserve those books together with "documents prepared or received in connection with transactions relating to the goods."
The period is in the Order. Article 83(6) of the Customs Act Enforcement Order counts from the day after the date of import permission:
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Customs-related books | 7 years |
| Customs-related documents | 5 years (7 years where the entry in the books was omitted) |
The same paragraph also fixes where they are kept — the head office or principal office, the office or place of business relating to that import transaction, or the importer's address. And it requires the relationship between the entries in the books and the documents to be organised so that it is clear from the import permit number and other recorded items.
So what is required is not "having them." It is matched up, in a fixed place, for a fixed number of years.
The trade and SCM platform exhibits at LTT2026 — four things taken off your hands
| What is taken off | What leaves the person | What the exhibits led with |
|---|---|---|
| ① The hand that reads documents | Re-keying and cross-checking | Ending dependence on one person |
| ② The effort of asking where it is | Chasing and waiting | Visibility and delay detection |
| ③ Many counters becoming one | A different routine per counterparty | Quotes and bookings in one place |
| ④ Going back before the order | Stock built on instinct | Procurement and demand planning |
① The hand that reads documents — after "trade," the words appearing most often in the exhibit text were "documents" and "person-dependent." The proposal is to replace the step where someone reads an invoice or a customs document and types it into another system, using OCR and EDI links. The framing "it stops when the person in charge changes" came up again and again.
② The effort of asking where it is — vessel movements picked up automatically, changes to the estimated arrival detected and notified. "Visibility" and "delay" appearing side by side is this type. What they set out to remove is the time spent phoning and emailing around.
③ Many counters becoming one — quotes, bookings, freight rates and exchanges with forwarders gathered into a single screen. The premise is bringing a state of several counterparties each with their own format into one shared format.
④ Going back before the order — the type that reaches up into procurement and purchasing, inventory and demand forecasting. The proposal is to put "what to buy and how many," which sits before the shipping, onto the same footing. "Each site has its own purchasing flow" is a problem statement that comes up often.
What all four had in common
All four move information that lived in people's hands and memories into a system. No more re-keying, no more chasing, one shared format.
Up to there it is a question of efficiency. But one thing changes on the other side of the move.
Replace paper exchanges with electronic ones, and the form of preservation changes too
The Electronic Books Preservation Act — formally the "Act on Special Provisions concerning the Method of Preserving National Tax Related Books and Documents Prepared Using Computers" — states in Article 7:
"A person with a preservation obligation relating to income tax (excluding withheld income tax) and corporation tax shall, where an electronic transaction has been carried out, preserve the electromagnetic records of the transaction information of that electronic transaction, as provided by Ministry of Finance Ordinance."
The part to read is "where an electronic transaction has been carried out." The moment an invoice that used to move on paper moves on a platform instead, that is an electronic transaction. And then what must be preserved is the electromagnetic record, not the paper.
Digitalising does not remove the duty. What it removes is the option of keeping it on paper. How preservation is actually done is then set by Ministry of Finance Ordinance.
The duty on the Customs Act side — books for 7 years, documents for 5, matched by permit number, in a fixed place — stands separately and unchanged. Two laws place different conditions on the same single document.
This is why choosing one does not end at comparing features
Whether the screen looks good, how many systems it connects to — those are easy to compare. What is hard to compare is what, where, for how many years, and matched up how, remains after the change.
Change the mechanism and you change both what has to be kept and how. This is a place to check before saying "we can bring it in." Which provisions apply, and how, depends on the form of the transaction and on the product, and the determination in any individual case rests with the competent authority.
We will take the enquiries together, on your behalf
Companies exhibiting at a show are waiting for enquiries. But if you approach them one by one, sales contact keeps coming from the ones whose conditions do not fit. The more of them there are, the heavier that becomes, and comparing stops being possible.
We have organised the exhibit information for this show in full, and we handed our card to the exhibitors at the venue. Tell us which step, roughly how many cases a month, and with which countries, and we will check with the ones that fit and come back with the answers collected in one place. We do not pass your contact details to them without your agreement.
What we hand over is information. We are not a distributor or licence holder for any one company; we set out several approaches to the same problem side by side. From our position importing and distributing pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food, we also tell you how these fit with the procedures that stack up differently for each product category.
Primary sources
- e-Gov Law Search — Customs Act (Article 94)
- e-Gov Law Search — Customs Act Enforcement Order (Article 83)
- e-Gov Law Search — Act on Special Provisions concerning the Method of Preserving National Tax Related Books and Documents Prepared Using Computers (Article 7)
The descriptions of exhibits in this article organise trends from the exhibit information published by the organiser and from public information on each company's official website. No individual product or company names are given, and no comparison or evaluation of merit is made. Published content is as of August 2026. Which provisions apply and what measures are required depend on the form of the transaction, the product and the process, and any individual determination rests with the competent authority.
