If there’s one thing logistics teams can all agree on, it’s this: nothing slows down a day faster than customs data sitting in one system while shipments live in another. You’ve got operations refreshing CargoWise, your customs team working inside Thyme-IT, finance chasing numbers from both sides, and customers calling for updates that you wish you had in one place.

At some point, every freight forwarder reaches the same realization that efficiency isn’t just about moving cargo quickly; it’s about connecting the systems that manage it, and that’s where the combination of Descartes Thyme-IT and CargoWise becomes a game-changer, especially when combined with smooth End-to-End Integration.

Let’s break down what Thyme-IT brings to the table, how CargoWise powers the logistics engine, and why integrating both creates a faster, cleaner, more profitable trade workflow.

Understanding the Descartes Thyme-IT Customs System

Descartes Thyme-IT is one of Europe’s leading customs platforms, used by freight forwarders, brokers, and logistics providers handling high-volume cross-border shipments. What makes it a standout system is its deep integration with EU customs networks, ensuring declarations flow smoothly without manual effort.


At its core, Thyme-IT helps customs teams file declarations, validate compliance, manage transit movements, and stay aligned with ever-changing EU customs rules. It centralizes tasks that would otherwise be scattered across spreadsheets, emails, and outdated legacy tools. For companies dealing with multiple countries and complex commodity structures, it becomes a reliable operational backbone.

CargoWise ERP System Explained

CargoWise functions as the global logistics operating system that manages quoting, bookings, shipments, documentation, warehousing, invoicing, and customer visibility. It's designed to help forwarders scale operations quickly without losing control of data, milestones, or financial accuracy.
Its biggest strengths include automated workflows, global compliance tools, multi-mode shipment management, and a financial engine that ties operations directly to accounting. For many logistics providers, CargoWise is the first place teams go to start and finish a shipment.

Why Integrating Both Systems Become Important?

Running Thyme-IT and CargoWise separately creates unnecessary friction across your logistics operation. Thyme-IT handles customs declarations extremely well, but it isn’t designed to manage the rest of the shipment lifecycle. Meanwhile, CargoWise controls everything that happens around the cargo, but it doesn’t perform EU customs declarations the way Thyme-IT does.

This naturally creates a gap.
CargoWise manages a long list of functions that don’t exist in Thyme-IT, including:

  • Full shipment execution (air, ocean, road, consolidation)
  • Job costing, invoicing, and financial postings
  • Milestone tracking and customer visibility
  • Document management (HAWB, MAWB, B/L, invoices, packing lists)
  • Rates, quoting, bookings, and transport management
  • Warehousing, e-commerce, and container automation
  • Operational compliance and quality control

When these two worlds operate in isolation, your team ends up copying data manually, cross-checking fields, and chasing updates between systems, a perfect recipe for delays, errors, and compliance issues.

And customers feel it immediately, slower transit, late clearances, inaccurate invoices, missing documents, and “I’ll get back to you” updates that damage trust.

Integration removes all that noise. Once both systems are connected, shipment data flows automatically from CargoWise into Thyme-IT, declarations return with real-time status, and finance receives correct duty and tax values without waiting for anyone to manually type them in.

Key Benefits of Integrating Thyme-IT with CargoWise

Integrating Thyme-IT with CargoWise brings significant advantages for forwarders, brokers, and logistics teams. By connecting shipment execution with customs filing, organizations can streamline operations, reduce errors, and gain greater visibility into every step of the trade process. Key benefits include:

  • Faster Customs Clearance – Automated data flow from CargoWise to Thyme-IT reduces filing time and speeds up MRN issuance.
  • Reduced Errors & Rejections – Eliminates manual data entry mistakes, minimizing declaration rejections.
  • Improved Financial Accuracy – Aligns shipment, invoice, and customs data, reducing reconciliation issues.
  • Operational Efficiency – Frees staff from repetitive copy-paste tasks, letting them focus on value-added work.
  • Enhanced Transparency – Provides consistent status updates across operations, finance, and customer portals.
  • Regulatory Compliance – Ensures accurate party IDs, commodity codes, and transaction details are automatically validated.
  • Scalable Processes – Supports bulk filings and high shipment volumes without additional manual effort.
  • Auditability & Traceability – Maintains a clear record of data flow between shipment and customs systems.

How IntegrationGo Ensures a Smooth Descartes Thyme-IT and CargoWise Integration?

IntegrationGo builds the bridge between Descartes Thyme-IT and CargoWise with a pragmatic, risk-aware approach:

Process mapping and blueprinting. The first stage is to lay out the actual workflow, including how tasks are produced in CargoWise, when invoices are issued, who is responsible for customs validation, and how duty and landed charges should be posted back to the ledger. That map becomes the integration blueprint.

Data mapping and conversion. Every relevant field, including HS codes, commodity descriptions, invoice amounts, shipment IDs, GL accounts, and party data, is mapped and normalized so that both systems understand the same values exactly.

Connectivity: API and EDI layers. IntegrationGo leverages middleware or direct APIs to enable two-way exchanges. CargoWise can push shipment and invoice data into Descartes for declaration preparation, while Descartes sends back MRNs, clearance status, and duty calculations to update CargoWise jobs and financials in near real time.

Security, validation, and testing. The integration features encrypted channels, role-based access controls, and automated reconciliation routines. End-to-end testing copies actual shipments (air, sea, and road), customs answers, and exception scenarios, ensuring that go-live is predictable.

Monitoring and continual improvement. Post-deployment dashboards monitor message flows, errors, and latency. Operational telemetry provides immediate modifications and gradual improvements, allowing the integration to expand in tandem with your company.

Our practical combination of mapping, secure middleware, and testing reduces project risk while ensuring the Descartes Tyme-IT-CargoWise connection delivers real operational value. 

Conclusion

An integrated customs and operations stack is no longer an optimization, it’s a necessity. Descartes provides compliance intelligence and broad filing capabilities; CargoWise manages operational flow and job accounting. IntegrationGo ties those capabilities together so declarations, statuses, and duty postings move automatically, accurately, and auditable from end to end.

Book a demo consultation today with IntegrationGo to map your workflows, validate the data flows, and build a secure, fully tested integration that moves trade faster, with less risk and more clarity.