EDI

How to get started with EDI (Electronic Document Interchange)

Connecting Trading Partners

Our Zenbridge team manages connectivity to EDI. Zenbridge offers the best price-performance EDI connectivity.

The onboarding process is simple:

1. Share requirements, and get/agree to a quote for costs and timescales.

2. Meet your success team, get connected, and test.

3. Go live.

Documents supported in the out-of-the-box integration

• 850 - Purchase Order from your Customer

• 855 - Purchase Order acknowledgment to your Customer

• 856 - Advance Shipping Notice to your Customer

• 846 - Inventory Update to your Customer

• 810 - Sales Invoice to your Customer

Zenbridge will perform any extra mapping requirements to the above.

Additional Documents

Zenbridge will add these for a fee of $200 (Sept 2023).

Salesorder is a mission-critical platform. To avoid reliability and support issues, Customers are not permitted to develop integrations between Salesorder and Zenbridge without our written approval.

Getting started with Zenbridge

Action	Notes
Check if the trading partner(s) you need to connect is on this list: Supported Trading Partners Use the search function in the middle of the screen on the far right.	If you do OR don't find the trading partner you need proceed to the next step.
Send an email including your contact information and the name(s) of the trading partner you want to connect to Zenbridge. Your contact is Jebaraj.	[e-mail] [phone]
Get and agree pricing details	The cost of connecting a trading partner that's not on the above list is $400. Zenbridge will share operational costs with you.
To get you up and running, Zenbridge will share the outcome with our support team.	Once we are ready to connect you, our support team will share your system EDI credentials (API key) with Zenbridge.
Connection testing	Our support team will work with Zenbridge and your trading partners to test your connections.
Our support team will contact you with initiation and operating instructions.	[e-mail] will update you.

Need to know

The functionality to transmit, receive, and process transactions is built into Salesorder. Depending upon the EDI documents used in the dialogues between your Salesorder system and your trading partners, all inbound and outbound transmissions are automated without user intervention.

For example, Sales Orders are created from inbound '850' Customer Purchase Orders and automatically appear in the Sales Orders List. In contrast, outbound Sales Invoices are pulled from the respective Customer's list of Sales Invoices.

What is EDI?

EDI (electronic document interchange) is a method of exchanging transactional documents between two trading partners. For example, a wholesaler supplies a retailer with products.

Whilst there is a broad spectrum of EDI applications, this article focuses on two of the most common use cases:

• 'Retail' customer Purchase Orders are to be processed by the wholesaler. Basically, you are dropshipping on behalf of the end user-facing entity, i.e. an online b2c site or a marketplace.

• Shipping instructions from the wholesaler to a third-party logistics warehouse provider (3PL)

Large retailers often mandate the wholesaler has to use an EDI solution to receive purchase orders from the retailer. They also require the wholesaler to send their invoices via EDI.

EDI operates in two formats:

Manual: The wholesaler accesses the EDI solution via a web terminal or Windows-based application. This solution presents the wholesaler user with a user interface that presents orders that can be viewed and rekeyed into the wholesaler's ‘back-office’ software. The wholesaler can create and send invoices to the retailer for payment.

Whilst this is labor intensive, it is cost-effective for low volumes of transactions.

EDI Automation: The wholesaler's back-office software is ‘connected’ to the retailer’s back-office software. The whole dialogue is conducted automatically between the two back-office applications.

With EDI, data is entered once and transmitted electronically from system to system, reducing the risk of errors caused by manual entry and eliminating administrative effort.

EDI in Salesorder

The EDI 'connectivity' is built into Salesorder.

EDI Documents and Transaction Codes

A useful reference for EDI documents.

Retail Trading Partners to Suppliers

Name	Number	Description
Request For Routing Response	754	Final routing instructions sent to the supplier by the retailer. Some major retailers will use this form to communicate final routing information for purchase orders, purchase order overrides, and shipment authorizations. The platform automatically transfers final routing instructions from the EDI 754 to the EDI 856 (ASN or Advance Shipment Notice).
Credit/Debit Authorization	812	Sent by retailers to suppliers to udate credit or debit status and keep accounts current.
Organizational Document	816	Sent to suppliers when new locations are added or existing stores move to new addresses. It is also used to provide a complete directory of stores and shipping facilities.
Payment Remittance Advice	820	The Payment Order/Remittance Advice document, indicating much you will be paid and matched to the invoice.
Planning Schedule	830	Forecasts demand so suppliers can be prepared for future orders.
Purchase Order	850/875	Indicates a seller wants your product or products. The EDI 875 is essentially the same document but is used by grocery stores.
Product Activity Data	852	Includes numbers like inventory levels and sales rates to indicate how your product is selling in stores.
Purchase Order Change	860/876	Sent when the retailer wants to revise the original Purchase Order.
Text Document	864	Provides updates like new store openings or new distribution centers, and may also be used to quickly alert vendors about document errors.
Functional Acknowledgement	997	Informs the supplier that an EDI document, or group of EDI documents, was recieved.

Suppliers to Retail Trading Partners

Name	Number	Description
Labels	GS1-128 or UCC-128	Technically not EDI documents, but too important to the process to leave out. In addition to standard information (Supplier Address, Trading Partner Address, etc.), they have barcodes to route the shipment through the supply chain. The barcode will match the information in the ASN and is used by the Trading Partner to add your merchandise to their inventory. They can be generated automatically in Lingo.
Request For Routing	753	Requests routing information from the retailer.
Invoice	810/880	Provides details for payment, along with related information such as item specifics, price, and quantities. The EDI 880 is used in Grocery.
Catalog/Pricing	832	A digital catalog of product information and proces that includes minimum order quantities, case-pack quantities, contact, etc.
Inventory Update	846	Communicates current inventory levels. Depending on the retailer requirements, it may be sent a few times a week, multiple times in a day, or only when items are being added or removed. Can include inventory amounts, committed inventory, inventory that is currently in transit, items on backorder, products that are temporarily or permanently out of stock, and information related to returns.
Product Activity Report	852	Tracks current retailer inventory and sales rates.
Purchase Order Acknowledgement	855	The PO Acknowledgement. This is how you tell the trading partner that you got their PO. This form will indicate if you accept the PO, reject the PO, or accept the PO with changes.
Advanced Shipping Notice	856	The 856 is the Advance Shipping Notice, also referred to as the ASN or simply as The Shipment. There is a lot in this form — order information, carton serial numbers, types of packaging used, carrier information and more.
Purchase Order Change/Request Acknowledgement	865	Acknowledges that the supplier has received a change to the original Purchase Order, and either accepts or rejects it.
Order Status Report	870	Updates retailer on current status of an order.
Functional Acknowledgement	997	Informs the retailer that an EDI document or a group of EDI documents has been recevied.

Warehouse Documents

Name	Number	Description
Warehouse Shipping Order	940	Sent to a warehouse or 3PL provider, authorizing a shipment to a retail trading partner.
Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipping Advice	943	Sent by suppliers to inform a warehouse/3PL provider that a transfer has been sent.
Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice	944	Sent by a 3PL provider to inform a supplier that a stock transfer shipment has been received.
Warehouse Shipping Advice	945	Transmitted by a warehouse or 3PL provider, indicating that a shipment has been sent.
Warehouse Inventory Adjustment Advice	947	Provides information about changes in inventory position, quanity or status. Can be used by a warehouse or a supplier.

How to work with the retailer’s EDI gateway provider

If you’re doing business with a large retailer, they almost always have multiple wholesale suppliers. In this case, they will have a preferred EDI gateway partner. EDI gateway providers always have initial setup costs and ongoing operational costs.

The manual method is a reasonably low cost per month to access the EDI gateway providers' network. The costs of the automation method are significantly higher.

To explore costs you’ll need to confirm the retailer’s preferred EDI gateway provider. Your retailer will provide you with the sales contact details. You can then discover the costs.

Your retailer might also provide you with their playbook documentation which will detail their technical requirements to establish you as a trading partner. Larger retailers have a key technical contact to support your EDI implementation journey.

If you choose the automation method, you’ll need to share the following information with our support team:

• If it exists the retail trading partner’s technical playbook.

• The technical contact details for your retail trading partner together with the trading partner company name.

• The EDI gateway provider’s company name and their implementation team contact.

We’ll then contact the above parties to assess and provide you with a scope of work to implement the automation.

Our scope of work includes:

1. Liaison with the gateway and retailer parties.

2. Business analysis to create requirements and technical specifications.

3. Development cost and time estimate.

4. Testing and acceptance requirements.

5. Operating documentation.

Development timescales and costs are derived from the number and type of documents in the dialogue. There are two development focuses: infrastructure modules to automate the dialogue and mapping to provide the transformation of documents.

Mapping is required to ensure the fields in the documents map to one another. For example, it is almost always the case that the fields on the retailer documents have different names and formats than the fields in the wholesaler’s system. This is true of all back office systems regardless of the software vendor. The EDI gateway provider provides communication and document transformation functions.

How to work with a 3PL and EDI

3PLs normally have two options for you to connect via EDI to their software platforms.

• Via their private network.

• Via an EDI gateway provider.

To explore costs, you must confirm the 3PL’s preferred EDI method. Your 3PL will provide you with the sales contact details. You can then discover the costs.

Your 3PL might also provide you with their playbook documentation detailing their technical requirements to establish you as a trading partner. Most 3PLs have a key technical contact to support your EDI implementation journey.

Regardless of EDI connection method, you’ll need to share the following information with our support team:

• If it exists the 3PL’s technical playbook.

• The technical contact details for your 3PL, together with the trading partner company name.

• If they are using an EDI gateway provider, their company name and their implementation team contact.

We’ll then contact the above parties to assess and provide you with a scope of work to implement the automation.

Our scope of work includes:

1. Liaison with the gateway and retailer parties.

2. Business analysis to create requirements and technical specifications.

3. Development cost and time estimate.

4. Testing and acceptance requirements.

5. Operating documentation.

Development timescales and costs are derived from the number and type of documents in the dialogue. There are two development focuses, infrastructure modules to automate the dialogue, and mapping to provide the transformation of documents.

For additional information see Third-party logistics (3PL)?

Salesorder EDI integration via XML

For developers only. See these notes.