Title: What is EDI? (Electronic Data Interchange): The Complete EDI Guide
Headings: What is EDI? The Complete Guide to Electronic Data Interchange
What is EDI? The Complete Guide to Electronic Data Interchange
What is EDI?
Computer-to-Computer
Traditional Manual Process
Automated EDI Process
Business Documents
Standard EDI Format
Business Partners
Secure, Standardized Connection
Automation
EDI vs. Traditional Paper or Email Communications
EDI Use Cases: Who Can Use EDI?
Supply Chain (Retail, Manufacturing, Automotive)
Healthcare
Logistics
Accounting
Aviation
Benefits of EDI
Faster Processing
Lower Costs
More Accuracy, Fewer Errors
Better Relationships
Strategic Benefits
Environmental Benefits
How EDI Works
1. Document Preparation
2: EDI Document Translation
3: Connect & Transmit EDI Documents
EDI Documents
EDI Envelopes for Transmission
Segments
Data Elements
EDI Implementation: Setup and Compliance Checklist
EDI Infrastructure
Aligning with Your Partners
Certification to Common Standards
Integration Guide
ArcESB EDI
ArcESB
All-in-One EDI Solution

Content: Here are just some of the most common scenarios where EDI is helpful, from among the many thousands of transaction types EDI handles every day. Supply Chain (Retail, Manufacturing, Automotive)
Purchasing
Order fulfillment
Shipping confirmations
International orders
Parts order fulfillments
Healthcare
Exchanging patient health information
Health insurance processing
Prescription information exchanges
Logistics
Scheduling shipments
Tracking goods
Accounting
Generating invoices
Providing audit trails
Aviation
Flight information exchanges
Passenger name records (PNRs)
International compliance and standardization
Benefits of EDI
EDI helps businesses improve supply chain speed, accuracy, efficiency and costs, and some of the greatest EDI benefits come at the strategic business level. Here, we cover what EDI means, practically, for business. Faster Processing
EDI can speed up business cycles by 61 percent
EDI enables transactions in minutes instead of days or weeks spent on postal mail or back-and-forth email communications
Automating paper-based tasks frees up your staff for higher-value tasks and provides them the tools to be more productive
Quick processing of accurate business documents leads to fewer re-worked orders, stock outs and cancellations
Automating application data exchange across a supply chain ensures critical data is sent on time and tracked in real time
Shortening order processing and delivery helps organizations reduce inventory
Lower Costs
EDI reduces the transaction costs of paper, printing, reproduction, storage, filing, postage and document retrieval, saving businesses more than 35 percent on transaction costs
For buyers that handle numerous transactions, using EDI can also result in millions of dollars of annual savings due to early payment discounts
In some cases, EDI is just 1/20th the cost of manual order processing, slashing costs by a factor of 20
EDI also eliminates costly errors due to illegible faxes, lost orders or incorrectly taken phone orders
More Accuracy, Fewer Errors
EDI reduces error transactions by 30-40 percent
EDI eliminates human errors from illegible handwriting, lost mail and keying errors
Better Relationships
Sellers benefit from improved cash flow and reduced order-to-cash cycles
In fact, EDI can reduce the order-to-cash cycle time by more than 20%, improving business partner transactions and relationships
Reducing errors also saves partners valuable time and frustration handling data disputes
Strategic Benefits
EDI provides real-time visibility into transaction status, enabling faster decision-making and better responsiveness to customer and market demands, helping businesses adopt a demand-driven approach
Product enhancements and delivery enjoy shorter lead times
Streamlines the process of entering new territories, as EDI provides a common worldwide business language
Environmental Benefits
EDI promotes sustainability and reduces CO2 emissions by replacing paper-based processes with electronic alternatives
EDI increases operational efficiencies, leading to fewer errors and less energy waste
How EDI Works
There are three steps in the process of sending EDI documents: prepare the documents, translate them into an EDI format and transmit them to a partner. One common process automated with EDI is the exchange of purchase orders (POs) and invoices. To give you a good example of how EDI works, we'll illustrate the EDI process for POs and invoices. 1. Document Preparation
Following the example of a PO and invoice, this is where a buyer prepares an order in a purchasing system. The buyer collects and organizes the data so it will work with EDI
For example, instead of printing a PO, the system creates an electronic file with the necessary information to build an EDI document
So how would you properly prepare documents?