What is EDI?
EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange, is the exchange of documents or data via electronic transmission between trading partners. Documents, such as purchase orders, invoices, shipping notices and statements, traditionally sent via post or email, are transmitted between your ERP or POS directly to the recipients ERP or POS system.
By transacting with your trading partners via EDI, re-keying documents into your system is eliminated, including a reduction in data entry errors.
Electronic Document Interchange improves the efficiency of your purchasing and supply process by removing a number of touchpoints where human error can be introduced, saving valuable labour and rework.
The purchase order is entered directly into your system as normal. In some systems, instead of selecting “Send via Email”, you would select “Send via EDI”. These options will vary from system to system, but the TradeNet team will work with your IT team to configure these options and appropriate alterations (if required).
Data can be sent via sFTP, API, or specialised Email address and once received, the TradeNet EDI platform validates the incoming document. A number of security protocols prevent unauthorised data from being sent to your inbound folder, including IP restrictions and usernames/passwords.
If required, TradeNet re-formats the data into the recipients preferred format. We accept and can translate into any type of structured, formatted data including EDIFACT, GS1, XML, CSV, and vector based PDF’s.
The recipient will be sent the re-formatted data via their preferred method of delivery. If supported by the recipient, they may return a Purchase Order Acknowledgment and Invoice to confirm the successful transaction. The return data will be re-formatted to your preferred format and delivered through the same process.
With so many touchpoints and opportunities for re-keying errors, the manual order process introduces unnecessary risk and potential delays into your ordering process.
Orders with EDI are faster, more cost efficient and reduce delivery delays due to data entry error. Orders are entered once, and the data is electronically transferred between systems.
By automating the document transaction process with TradeNet EDI, human error and labour is removed.
EDI removes the need to re-key inbound invoices or purchase orders into your accounting package, ERP or POS system, resulting in less labour cost per invoice.
Automated data transfer minimises data entry errors and reduces returns, credits and delivery delays.
Removing the paper from your order process will help save the environment, reduce your stationery expenses and physical scanning/storage costs.
