Operational efficiency is a concern that businesses of all sizes share. Technology like EDI can help businesses improve their operations and automate communication. So, what is EDI? And what can it do?
Electronic data interchange, or EDI, is the standardized computer-to-computer exchange of information between two or more partner entities. It’s a method of digitally transferring data between companies and their customers, partners, and systems. EDI software is a tool that helps the computer carry out data transfers with other computers. The software prepares the data by translating it into the standard EDI format.
EDI is commonly used in manufacturing, retail, health care, finance, and logistics to transmit documents like invoices, purchase orders, and shipping notices. It’s also widely used to streamline HR and finance processes. For example, large retailers that source from manufacturers and suppliers find themselves in need of an EDI connection, seeing as they rely on its seamlessness and accuracy to maintain steady recurring product shipments to stock their shelves. With multiple suppliers and manufacturers in the equation, EDI automation can be the difference between profit and disaster.
Not only is EDI a lot faster than conventional communication methods like fax and mail, but it’s also much more secure since it involves very little to no human intervention. Without EDI, the average U.S. small retailer has only 63% inventory accuracy.
Read on to explore the different types of EDI, how they work, and what they can do for your business.
Transmitting data like a purchase order or an invoice through EDI is a well-defined and fully automated process. Here’s how it works:
1.Document creation and translation: When a company creates a purchase order, an invoice, or any other type of document, it’s first translated or converted into a standardized EDI format through an EDI solution or translation software.
2. EDI transmission: Once translated, the document is transmitted through one of two primary methods:
3. Document receipt and translation: Once received, the EDI document is translated back into a format that the recipient system can easily process, essentially reversing the translation that occurred during the initial transmission. For example, if your company receives a purchase order, your EDI software will translate it into a format that your inventory management software (IMS) can understand and process.
4. Integration and processing: The recipient’s system then integrates and processes the document. For example, a supplier receives a shipping order, which then gets integrated into their inventory system and processed to prepare data for a response.
5. Acknowledgment and response: At this stage, an acknowledgment is sent back to the business or vendor, indicating that the document has been received.
Companies generally have extensive databases and ERP systems or IMS systems that are constantly updated. Communication through EDI sometimes only requires specific data from a few selected fields, which depends on the nature of the communication and who the partner is. There are different ways to manage these transactions:
As technology advances, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is evolving beyond traditional practices, adapting to new challenges and opportunities in supply chain automation and business integration. Modern EDI solutions are rapidly incorporating emerging technologies to enhance efficiency, visibility, and scalability.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a crucial role in b2b EDI integration by automating decision-making and improving data accuracy. AI-driven EDI systems can analyze large volumes of EDI data, identify trends, and predict future demand, reducing human error and accelerating business operations. Predictive analytics, combined with AI, can forecast supply chain disruptions, allowing businesses to adjust their inventory and shipping schedules preemptively.
This shift enables companies to optimize their B2B integration by using AI models that help forecast customer demand and manage order processes more effectively. The ability to make data-driven decisions in real-time helps reduce order delays and improve operational efficiency.
Cloud-based EDI integration solutions have become a game-changer for businesses looking for more flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient integration solutions. By moving EDI processes to the cloud, companies reduce their infrastructure investment and enhance the speed of their data exchange processes. The cloud facilitates seamless direct EDI integration with other business applications such as ERP integration, inventory management software (IMS), and CRM systems, offering improved visibility into supply chain activities.
Moreover, cloud-based solutions provide real-time visibility, which is critical for businesses managing global supply chains. Companies can monitor and track orders, shipments, and inventory levels in real time, mitigating the risks associated with supply chain disruptions.
Blockchain technology is transforming EDI integration solutions by providing a decentralized and secure framework for data exchange. Blockchain ensures data integrity, immutability, and transparency, making it an ideal partner for EDI electronic data interchange, especially in industries like healthcare and finance, where EDI compliance and security are paramount.
By integrating blockchain into EDI protocols, businesses can verify transactions in real-time and ensure the authenticity of data. Blockchain-powered EDI reduces the risk of fraud, enhances transparency, and facilitates quicker dispute resolution between trading partners.
As legacy EDI systems become increasingly inflexible in the face of fast-evolving business requirements, EDI modernization is a crucial step for businesses looking to stay competitive. Modern EDI solutions offer more adaptable, cloud-based models that simplify EDI software integration without the heavy infrastructure investment required by older systems.
Adopting cloud-based EDI systems or EDI-as-a-Service significantly reduces the complexity and costs of maintaining on-premise EDI infrastructure. These services allow companies to access scalable solutions without the need for ongoing hardware or software updates. This also ensures continuous compliance with the latest EDI standards and protocols like EDIFACT or ANSI X12.
EDI-as-a-Service provides a more flexible solution, enabling businesses to use hybrid EDI integration models. Companies can choose between direct EDI integration for high-volume partners or indirect EDI integration for smaller trading partners, optimizing their data exchange processes.
The integration of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) with EDI is another significant modernization trend. APIs allow faster and more flexible communication between systems, improving EDI’s real-time capabilities. By combining API integration with EDI, businesses can enhance the speed of their data integration across platforms, such as IMS, ERP, and CRM systems.
This hybrid model provides successful EDI integration, as it allows businesses to quickly adapt to market changes, ensuring that data exchanges are seamless across various platforms and communication protocols.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly becoming a part of EDI integrations, especially in industries like manufacturing and logistics, where process automation is key. IoT devices can communicate with EDI systems in real-time, providing continuous updates on the location and status of goods. By automating these processes, businesses can optimize their business processes, improve inventory management, and reduce lead times.
Automation, fueled by IoT, also enables the use of smart contracts that can automatically trigger EDI messages such as invoices, shipment notifications, or order confirmations, without human intervention. This enhances the efficiency and accuracy of the overall EDI system.
Adopting an EDI solution improves operational efficiency, especially when communicating with clients and partner businesses. Here’s how EDI can benefit your business:
The difference between types of EDI comes down to the communication methods used, the message formats, and how businesses implement them. More importantly, it depends on the company’s needs and industry.
Some businesses prefer point-to-point EDI to maintain direct communication with their partners for more control and cost-effectiveness. Other businesses may need a VAN third-party service to access translation services, secure channels, and additional EDI management features –– especially businesses leveraging multi-channel inventory management.
Here are the seven types of EDI and what makes them unique:
This method was used in the early days of EDI technology, and it relies on building EDI connectors for all data transactions under a unified protocol. This approach is only applicable when you have a limited number of users and a single connectivity protocol. As you grow, it turns obsolete.
This is a slightly improved solution in terms of architecture as you can outsource the mapping of document sharing, their translation in different formats, and the reporting to an external vendor who will also be responsible for technical support. They provide you with a document mailbox and are useful when your business exceeds the handling capacity of the direct connection model.
For large organizations that have a high volume of document sharing, the hybrid model is ideal. Under this approach, the high-volume, high-frequency transactions are transferred to direct EDI connectors, and the rest of the transactions are managed through an EDI network provider. This helps maintain agility while optimizing costs.
The entire workload associated with document interchange is looked after by your managed services vendor in this case. They fetch the data directly from your ERP system and execute all tasks ranging from mapping to reporting. This is a good choice for significantly large businesses in e-commerce that do not want to get involved in the technicalities of developing and maintaining the infrastructure.
Indirect EDI typically involves a third-party intermediary like VANs to facilitate electronic data exchange. This solution covers services needed to manage, transmit, and translate EDI documents, meaning the EDI network, its security, and operation are all covered and managed by the third-party intermediary.
These providers offer enhanced services, increased compatibility, and multi-party connectivity. While it may give you some peace of mind in terms of managing and monitoring the system, it usually comes at the cost of subscription and usage fees.
Simpler web-based access, cloud-based infrastructure, and ease of implementation mean that web EDI provides the standard EDI functionality with the added benefit of superior accessibility.
Web EDI may lack the resources for a complex EDI system, making it more suitable for small to medium-sized businesses performing electronic transactions with larger partners.
Mobile EDI has unique accessibility benefits, making it easier to conduct transactions from anywhere, with flexibility and accessibility beyond traditional office settings. User-friendly interfaces, real-time data exchanges, and improved efficiency are some benefits of mobile EDI.
An EDI transaction is when a document or data is communicated from one party to another through the network. The most common functions of EDI transactions are handling requests for purchase orders and invoices, sending out acknowledgment messages, tracking information, and providing payment information to the partners.
You’ll notice that each transaction comes with a code (EDI 850, EDI 855, EDI 820, etc.). These codes are identifiers that make the type of transaction clear. For example, an EDI 850 refers to purchase orders — receiving one will automatically trigger an EDI 855 response as a purchase order acknowledgment.
There are several types of EDI transactions, and each one serves a specific purpose. Some of the most commonly used EDI transactions are:
An EDI 850 transaction is an electronic purchase order. When a company puts forward an order to buy goods or services, an EDI 850 is used to convey all purchase details such as the type of goods/services, the quantity, the timeline, and the payment terms. Additionally, some purchase orders may contain specific information related to shipping the products and the shipping carrier’s information.
While an EDI 850 is sent to convey a purchase order, an EDI 855 is the response that’s sent to acknowledge its receipt. It’s an acknowledgment of receipt of the purchase order and serves as a provisional confirmation for the partner before issuing an invoice.
The EDI 810 transaction is an electronic invoice containing all the information that a traditional paper-based invoice. it’s shared with the partner once the EDI 850 Purchase Order has been received.
EDI 820 transaction is also referred to as a Payment Order and is used to communicate the financial details such as the total amount to be paid to a trading partner and the due date of payment. The EDI 820 is generally issued once the invoice has been received.
An EDI 997 is a functional acknowledgment that’s frequently used to acknowledge receipt of documents, to validate their integrity, or to report errors or exceptions in the transmission process.
Also known as the EDI Advance Shipping Notice (ASN), the EDI 856 transaction carries details about the shipment, including contents, quantities, carrier information, expected delivery dates, and more. They enable recipients to prepare for incoming goods.
The EDI 940 transaction is known as a Warehouse Shipping Order and contains detailed information about the products being shipped from the warehouse. It authorizes the warehouse management system to ship them to either the trading partner or the retail customer. An EDI 940 acts as the final greenlight that the warehouse requires before it can ship the order to its destination.
The use of standardized data formats is crucial for maintaining the structure, syntax, and semantics of the information shared across multiple partners. These formats provide a common language for the data exchange.
For EDI to be most efficient, it’s important to aim for seamless integration with existing systems like Inventory Management Software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and customer relationship management (CRM), HR, and finance tools.
When EDI systems collaborate seamlessly with HR tools, for example, it ensures that changes in employee information, such as new hires, terminations, or modifications to personal or payroll data, are accurately reflected in EDI documents like employee benefit enrollment forms or payroll-related transactions.
Integrating EDI with finance systems enables accurate processing of invoices, purchase orders, payment information, and other financial documents exchanged between trading partners. It automates the transfer of financial data from EDI documents into accounting or finance software, reducing manual data entry errors and enhancing overall financial management.
Despite its rich history dating back to the 1960s, EDI is still a developing technology. As more EDI software work to further refine business communication and transaction processes, EDI continues to change in several ways.
Cloud-based solutions are part of this change. The shift toward cloud-based EDI offers a measure of scalability, flexibility, and accessibility, allowing businesses to manage transactions securely from anywhere. These platforms provide cost-effective options for SMBs to access advanced capabilities without significant investments.
For example, QuickBooks provides cloud-based inventory management software that seamlessly integrates with EDI, allowing SMBs to manage inventory, sales orders, and fulfillment processes in a centralized system, improving efficiency and accuracy in managing stock levels and order fulfillment.
The rise of AI and machine learning is another avenue of change, as its integration into EDI systems enhances automation and predictive analytics. These technologies help optimize supply chain processes by analyzing large datasets, predicting demand patterns, improving forecasting accuracy, and automating routine tasks like document routing or data validation.
For example, Walmart pioneered EDI adoption in the retail industry, improving supply chain efficiency by utilizing the technology to manage inventory, orders, and payments with their suppliers.
EDI solutions can prove to be one of the best tools for any growing organization as it enables quick digital transformation. Implementing a proper EDI platform can facilitate internal and external communications, data pooling, and software integration.
But how do we find the best EDI provider for our business?
To figure out which type of EDI works best for you, it’s important to consider costs, scalability, and ease of use.
Before choosing your EDI solution, it’s important to analyze your business needs and evaluate existing systems to determine the most compatible one. This helps identify EDI requirements and pave the way for the implementation strategy.
From there, it’s a matter of choosing the EDI standards and protocols that work best for your industry and partners. That’s when you integrate and test your EDI software to make sure your data exchange works seamlessly for you and your partners.
Choosing the right EDI provider is an important decision that hinges on a few key considerations:
Evaluate support for various document types and various EDI standards. This should be a top priority because as your business grows, you’ll have to deal with a lot of vendors and supply chain participants.
You’ll need to exchange different document types, including shipping reports, warehousing documents, and shipping labels. Your EDI provider should be able to support all common EDI standards apart from the industry-specific EDI standards, including ANSI, AS2, and EDIFACT.
Not every vendor specializes in all types of EDI platforms. Depending on the one you selected, it’s important to evaluate the vendor’s expertise and experience in delivering the type of platform you need.
The EDI platforms are broadly classified into cloud, mobile-based, web-based, networking, and full-fledged B2B EDI solutions. The choice also depends on the existing IT infrastructure, underlying technical expertise, and the complexity of your organizational structure. That’s why it’s important to find trustworthy EDI providers that meet your needs head-on.
The second aspect that you need to put on high priority is the level of integration support offered. Your EDI provider should support solutions that enable a seamless flow of data and insights across software packages like warehouse, shipping, order processing, product lifecycle management, and inventory management systems.
Your EDI solution provider must cater to your existing business needs as well as evolving requirements. Cloud-based EDI solutions seem to be a good fit as they provide virtually unlimited scalability and flexibility.
It’s also important that you find developers and quality assurance engineers who can keep the system running. Ensuring that your EDI provider scores high on these points determines whether you benefit from EDI implementation or if it does more harm than good.
Whenever we discuss EDI solutions, mapping and translation are invariably considered important. Your vendor should provide you with exhaustive mapping and translation capabilities as they are fundamental to interoperability. The mapping and translation tools should support a wide range of document types and encoding-decoding formats to minimize the complexities in integrations and subsequent maintenance.
If you are opting for a VAN solution, the scope of service should be discussed and documented extensively to avoid any conflicts in the future.
Choosing the right type of EDI will depend on what works best for your business and your partners. That’s why Cin7 Omni Inventory Management Software includes a built-in EDI feature, providing a comprehensive solution that streamlines operations through workflow automation, ensuring seamless communication with trading partners.
Its full-service offering eliminates the need for internal IT resources or third-party providers, simplifying the EDI process and reducing complexities. By leveraging Cin7’s integrated EDI capabilities, businesses can experience faster time to value, benefiting from efficient data exchange, standardized processes, and improved collaboration.
While the answer to the question “What is EDI?” may be complicated, Cin7’s all-encompassing solution makes it simple, empowering businesses to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.
Ready to streamline operations? Explore Cin 7’s built-in EDI software today.
The success of modern-day supply chain management is largely dependent on how efficiently businesses exchange information and insights. This covers all aspects of the supply chain between demand and fulfillment but sharing business data outside your organization requires you to be in complete control as well as safeguard your interests. The basic step in this direction is sharing order process details, inventory management reports, warehousing inputs, pipeline inventory, and shipping.
Generally, two types of solutions facilitate data sharing and pooling across organizations: EDI and API. Let us understand the difference between the two and which one is the ideal choice for supply chain management:
Purchase orders, invoices, shipping notices, and inventory documents are all examples of the electronic data transmitted and received through EDI systems. They are standardized business documents that are automatically transmitted and translated between a business and its partners.
API (application programming interface) and EDI are both technologies used to exchange data between different systems, but they have different purposes. API facilitates real-time interaction and data exchange between applications and services, while EDI focuses on the standardized exchange of business documents between partners.
EDI tools are software solutions with dedicated EDI functionalities like ERP systems, cloud-based EDI platforms, and specialized applications for specific industries and document types. These tools enable businesses to efficiently conduct electronic transactions and automate document exchange processes.
