2017 Commodity Flow Survey

HELP SCREENS / Instructions for electronic 2022 CFS Survey Questionnaire

Item A – Contact Information Regarding This Survey

Enter your name, title, phone, and email address in the event that we have any questions about your responses to the survey.

Name and Mailing Address

This will be used for future CFS correspondence when there is no valid email address on file. Update the information displayed as to a headquarters or office building that reports for the physical shipping location.

Item A – Shipping Location Information

Verify that the company name and shipping address displayed are correct from where your shipments originate. If any component of the company name and shipping address is incorrect, make the corrections for each address component in Item A.

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Item C - Operating Status

What best describes this location’s operating status during the designated reporting week. If this location’s operating status is described as either temporarily or seasonally inactive and made no outbound shipments during the designated reporting week, select “in Operation – No shipping activity during the reporting period.

If this location’s operating status is described as “Ceased operation” and made no outbound shipments during the designated reporting week, enter the date the location ceased operation.

If the location was sold or acquired, select the "In Operation – Sold or Acquired" box and describe these operations changes in Item J – “Remarks”.

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Item D1 – Shipments from Originating Shipping Location

We only want shipments that originate from the physical shipping location listed. If you have shipments not originating from this location, we ask that you do not report these shipments. We need to confirm that you are able to exclude any shipments not originating at the physical shipping location.

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Item D2 – Total Number and Value of Outbound Shipments

Total Number of Outbound Shipments

An outbound shipment is a movement of commodities from your location to another single location, in one trip.

A single shipment may have multiple pieces, and go by multiple vehicles, such as unit trains or truck convoys, but only one destination. For example, a full truckload should be counted as a single shipment only if all the commodities on the truck are destined for one location. For a less than truckload (LTL), only that part of the load that is transported from the same origin and is delivered to the same destination in one delivery is counted as one shipment.

On the other hand, commodities sent from your location to multiple destinations constitute multiple shipments. Each location on the route to which your commodities are delivered is considered one shipment.

"Commodities" refer to items that this location produces, sells, or distributes. Waste products of your location’s operation (that have no value for your location) are not considered commodities and should not be reported.

Enter the total number of outbound shipments for the one-week reporting period displayed.

Shipments to Include:

• Any materials picked up by the customer (“customer pick-up”)

• Only those shipments that were sent from the address listed in Item A

• Shipments made from the location listed on Item A on behalf of another establishment (Drop-Shipments)

• Shipments of commodities of all sizes, by any mode of transportation (e.g., parcels,

truck, railroad)

• Any shipment of products from this location to another location of the company that are intended for sale (e.g., products moved from this location to a company warehouse)

Shipments to Exclude:

• Drop-shipments, made from another location other than the shipping address in Item A

• Internal administrative items such as inter-office memos, payroll checks,

business correspondence

• Promotional items sent to potential customers free of charge

• Refuse and waste items such as scrap paper, waste, and recyclable materials unless this location is in the business of selling these materials

• Items moved from this location to another location of the company if not intended

for commercial activity (e.g., the transfer of office furniture to be used at another location of this company)

Total Value of Outbound Shipments

Enter the total value in dollar amount for the outbound shipments you reported in

Item D1. The value should not include freight charges or excise taxes (i.e., report the net selling value, freight on board plant). If the value is not readily available from your records, please estimate.

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Item F – Shipments Characteristics Summary - Sample of Shipments to Report

(if a sample of your shipments was selected in Item F1)

If you have more than 40 shipments.

Report the information requested for all shipments made during the assigned week.

When sampling your shipments for the “report xx shipments” shown on the screen, please use all your files that reflect the full range of your location shipping activities, regardless of modes of transportation used, type of commodities or products shipped, customers, or destinations.

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Item F3 and Shipment Upload Spreadsheet - Shipment Characteristics

(See Shipments upload spreadsheet columns document for columns included in the CFS 2022_shipments_template)

Most businesses will be asked to report at most 40 shipments in Item F. However, businesses that ship a high volume of commodities might be asked to report on up to 80 shipments - to

capture the diversity of goods and destinations to which they ship. Pages 8-11 of the questionnaire are provided just in case more than 40 shipments need to be reported in Item F.

Shipment ID Number – Enter the invoice number, shipment number, or some other unique identification number that your location could use to find this particular shipping document if questions arise regarding your report.

Shipment Date – Select the date of the shipment. If shipment date is not available, use the invoice/shipping document date. Use numbers only.

Shipment Value – Enter the dollar value, in whole dollars, of the entire shipment. The value should not include freight charges or excise taxes, i.e., report the net selling value, Freight on Board plant (FOB plant). If the value is not readily available from your records, please estimate.

Net Shipment Weight – Enter the net weight of the total shipment in whole pounds. If net weight is not readily available from your records, please estimate. Convert all other types of measurements to whole pounds. If you are not able to express the weight in pounds, please state in Item J – “Remarks”, the unit you are reporting in. Estimates are acceptable.

Product or Commodity Description – Enter a brief description of the commodity shipped. For shipments with more than one commodity, describe only the commodity with the greatest weight. Mixed freight categories are also available for some of the commodity groups in the SCTG Manual. Do not use trade names, catalog numbers, or other codes not familiar to persons outside your business. For assistance in locating the appropriate commodity code, refer to the alphabetized quick reference at the beginning of the 2022 Standard Classification of Transported Good (SCTG) at https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cfs/technical-documentation/code-list/CFS-1200_22.pdf

Climate or Temperature Controlled – If the product or commodity described required temperature controlled, select “Yes” “Y”, otherwise enter “N” for No. In this survey, a temperature-controlled shipment is defined as a shipment that needs to be, and is transported in a vehicle, container, or special packaging that either actively (by the use of an on-board powered system), or passively (either with or without coolants) regulates, or maintains the required temperature range (e.g., warm, cold, frozen) of the shipment during all phases of the transportation. A climate-controlled shipment controls the humidity, ventilation, and carbon dioxide levels of the shipment during all phases of transportation.

Example: If the product or commodity is a pharmaceutical product that is required to be shipped in a foam container to regulate the temperature of the item, you would enter “Y” for yes it was temperature controlled.

Hazardous Materials – If the item described in column () is a hazardous material, enter the 4-digit United Nations (UN) or North American (NA) number.

For a mixed shipment, in which the heaviest item is required to be reported is not a hazmat, but other commodities in the shipment are hazmat, the shipment should not be marked as hazmat, and column (I) should be left blank.

U.S. Destination or U.S. Exit Port – For domestic shipments, enter the city, state, and 5-digit Postal Code of the buyer/receiver’s "ship to" address as it appears on the shipping document. Do not spell out the state name, rather use the two-letter state postal abbreviation.

For Customer Pick-ups only, enter the customer’s address. If unknown, enter this location’s shipping address.

Important – For export shipments, report the U.S. Port of Exit (POE) as the destination city. The Port of Exit is the port, airport, or the border crossing from which the shipment left the country.

Mode(s) of Transport to U.S. Destination – Enter the code(s) for all modes of transport used for the shipment to its U.S. destination. Enter all modes used in the sequence in which the modes are used (e.g., 343).

Do not use commas (,), dashes (-), or spaces to separate each mode.

Do not include the export mode of transport in this column – the export mode should be reported in “Export Mode”.

For Customer Pick-ups – Report C.

MODES OF TRANSPORTATION

Parcel/U.S.P.S/or courier – Includes shipments of packages that each weigh 150 pounds or less and are transported by a for-hire carrier.

Company-owned truck – Trucks operated by employees of this location or the buyer/receiver of the shipment. This includes trucks providing dedicated services to this location.

For-hire truck – Shipments by common or contract carriers made under a negotiated rate.

Railroad – Any common carrier or private railroad.

Great Lakes - Barges, ships, or ferries operating primarily in the Great Lakes.

Inland water – Barges, ships, or ferries operating primarily in navigable waters, both within and along the borders of the United States, such as: Rivers – Examples: the Mississippi River and Saint Lawrence Seaway Lakes

Along the shoreline but actually in the ocean – Examples: Intracoastal Waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and the Inside Passage of Alaska.

Canals, harbors, major bays, and inlets

Deep sea – Barges, ships, or ferries operating primarily in the open waters of the ocean, outside the borders of the United States.

Pipeline – Movements of petroleum, gas, slurry, etc. through pipelines that extend to other locations or locations beyond the shipper’s location. Aqueducts for the movement of water are not included.

Air – Any shipment sent via air mode.

Other mode – Any mode not listed above.

Unknown – Unable to determine the mode of transportation.

Customer pick-up – Any shipment that is picked up at the destination by the customer.

Note: Transportation equipment that is "shipped" under its own power, such as boats, barges, ferries, ships, aircraft, trucks, and trains should be classified with the appropriate mode above. Transportation equipment shipped under its own power for which an appropriate

mode is not listed (e.g., buses, recreational vehicles) should be listed as "other mode".

Export – For the purposes of this survey, shipments to Puerto Rico and U.S. territories and possessions are considered exports.

Foreign Destination – Only respond if the shipment is an export. Enter the foreign city, country, and postal code of the destination. Make sure the U.S. Destination or U.S. Port of Exit only contain the domestic portion of the shipment.

Export Mode – Only respond if the shipment is an export. Enter the code for the mode of transport by which the shipment left the country.

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See Hazmat Supplemental Help Screens Content document for Item H Help Screens

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Time to Complete Survey

Enter the total time that was needed to complete this survey up to this question. Include the time it took to read the instructions, to gather the information needed, and to enter and verify the data. Also, include time by all staff who contributed to completing the survey. If completing this survey took one hour and thirty minutes, enter “1” in the box before “Hours” and “30” in the box before “Minutes”.

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Remarks

Use this space for your remarks, for clarifying your responses, for stating any critical business changes that have recently occurred or are forthcoming (e.g., closures, plant renovations, merges, etc.), or providing feedback on the questionnaire.