By now, I am sure most business professionals have heard about or have already implemented EDI, ERP Management Systems, and of course eCommerce Stores. If not, here’s a quick explanation of each Read more
Customized business solutions to optimize operations, drive growth, and improve overall efficiency and profitability
Tag Archive for: business
This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.
EDI Communication is one of the best ways to exchange important business documents with Trading Partners. Documents such as Purchase Orders, Invoices and ASNs can be safely exchanged electronically with business partners, like retailers, in a matter of seconds. In many cases however, Small and Medium Enterprises do not have the budget for some of these EDI communication solutions out there and do not have any in-house staff experienced with EDI exchange. What should these businesses do?
EDI Solution as a Service for SMEs
After over a decade of working hand in hand with Small and Medium Businesses, we’ve come up with a solution. Our EDI specialists realized that it might not be realistic to have SMEs hire in-house EDI experts or purchase expensive EDI communication solutions on the market. This is when our experienced team designed and developed a tool that can be implemented as a Service – no need for any setup or equipment on premises – called EDI2XML as a Service. Here’s how it works:
- We communicate with your EDI Trading Partner in order to pick up any incoming EDI documents from their mailbox
- We convert all EDI documents into XML or CSV format (whichever works best to be integrated into your management system (ERP suite, CRM system, etc.))
- We push all XML documents to you, to be integrated into your system
- You will be notified every time EDI documents are sent and received
- The opposite process (from XML to EDI) works for outgoing documents.
Click here to view an infographic on EDI2XML as a Service.
Converting from unreadable formats like EDI x12 or EDIFACT (for those companies in Europe) to XML or CSV, allows for easy integration into ERP suits or CRM systems out on the market. On top of this, XML format is easy to read by any businessperson. Our goal was and continues to be to simplify the EDI communication process for Small and Medium Enterprises that are looking to increase efficiency. It’s time SMEs eliminated manual data entry (or human intervention) and enjoyed a smooth, continuous order processing flow.
For a while, EDI was not well liked amongst Small & Medium Enterprises. These companies were finding it to be too slow, too complex and way too expensive. They then resorted to a lot of manual data entry for orders as they would receive orders and invoices via email or fax. However, over the years, things have changed…a lot and for the better. Read more
This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.
EDI communication, although it may still have a bad rep for being too complex and expensive, is growing in popularity amongst businesses. It still remains to be the best and most secure method of exchanging electronic information between Trading Partners. Does it have to be so complex and expensive? Not at all! It’s whom you choose to hire as your EDI Provider that makes all the difference. Most large Providers are not flexible enough to deal with Small and Medium Enterprises. This was a problem in which our EDI experts realized over 20 years ago and eventually found a solution.
The Solution – Fully Managed EDI Service
EDI2XML is a translation tool that converts EDI documents to XML/CSV format (based on a pre-defined schema) for incoming documents (and vice versa for outgoing documents). XML is a format that is easily readable by any business person, no matter their IT or EDI knowledge. It is also easier to integrate this XML document into the company’s management system – automating and simplifying the whole communication process. On top of all this, we understand that not all businesses have an internal IT team, which makes implementing new software solutions difficult and complicated for the business executives. We then needed another solution to another problem. We came up with EDI2XML Managed Services.
Basically, this SaaS cloud offering enabled companies to exchange via EDI with their Trading Partners without lifting a finger. How great is that? Our team picks up any incoming EDI documents straight from the customer’s Trading Partner’s mailbox, converts it into the desired XML format of the customer, and sends it to the customer or integrates the data straight into their management system. Outgoing documents works in the opposite way; we pick up any outgoing XML files extracted from the management system, we convert it into EDI format to then send it straight to the Trading Partner.
Key Benefits of Managed EDI Solution
- Improves customer/partner relationships
- Doing business with the large retailers, who require their partners to use EDI, is finally made possible
- Staff can focus on their core business tasks rather than on manual data entry for incoming orders
- The B2B flow of information is enhanced and simplified
- Exchanging via EDI is affordable for the smaller companies
- Improves order processing cycle time reductions; invoices and POs can be processed within hours rather than days/weeks
- Documents are more accurate (reduced errors) as there is no manual data entry required
- Cash flow is also improved since electronic invoicing via EDI increases the speed of payment by the customers
- Employees can quickly access order statutes or other important information to make strategic decisions
All in all, EDI2XML has indeed eliminated many supply chain inefficiencies that companies are living with today and has provided accuracy and timeliness for order processing. Our team is also very flexible and understands that EDI communication can differ between companies, retailers, etc. After being in the EDI communication business for over 20 years, we’ve seen a lot! Selling a solution is not the way to go – it’s about solving a problem by improving processes. Let us handle your EDI communication process.
Contact us for a free EDI Consultation so we can better understand your EDI requirements, specific to your business
__________________________________________________________________________
EDI Communication and VANs
What is a VAN ?
A Value Added Network (VAN) is considered the “post office” where business partners can collect and sort EDI documents coming through. As of today, a considerable amount of EDI transactions are still going through VANs, however this number is always in constant decline considering the popularity of the internet, its reduced cost as well as the level of security someone can implement with internet communication protocols. Most of the “major players” in the retail industry, have switched to a point-to-point communication of EDI files and transactions using one or many of the following secured communication protocols for a point-to-point EDI exchange:
FTP (not secured – plain text)
sFTP
Https
AS2
AS3
telnet
“bisync modem” to communicate through a value added network (VAN). This is the oldest method of secured communication.
