Summary of Changes to the 2017 Commodity Flow Survey Advance Questionnaire

Attachment B

Summary of Changes to the 2017 Commodity Flow Survey Advance Questionnaire

The 2017 Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) Advance Questionnaire expands upon the 2012 Advance Questionnaire. In an effort to identify and prioritize non-shipping locations, the Census Bureau restructured the order of the questions slightly from the previous period.

	CFS Advance Questions Order
	2012	2017
1	Verification of shipping activity	Verification of shipping activity with location address posted above the questions
2	Verification of name and shipping address	Verification of name and shipping address
3	Verification of mailing address	Annual value of shipments with location address posted above the question
4	Annual value of shipments	Verification of mailing address
5	Contact information	Contact information
6	Remarks	Remarks

The location address will be displayed for the first, second, and third questions versus only for the second question. This is to emphasize with clarity which address the respondent should reference when responding to these questions.

Annual Value of Shipments will now be the third question asked versus the fourth question due to the importance of the question; it is related to the address information in questions one and two.

The Census Bureau replaced the word “establishment” used throughout the 2012 questionnaire with “location” on the 2017 questionnaire. The purpose of this change was to use a word more relevant to the respondent than the word use by the U.S. Census Bureau staff for sampling.