Is your EDI solution really integrated or is it manual?

Is your EDI solution really integrated or is it manual?

After speaking with numerous customers and prospects over the past few months, one thing I have noticed is a lot of customers seem to be using an EDI solution that was sold to them as integrated when really there is an awful lot of extra work involved. As I dug into it a little deeper they all seem to say the same thing is that they are paying a lot for VAN (Value Added Network) fees and getting huge charge backs from Trading Partners. The charge backs were from their EDI solution claiming the ASN was sent but really it was not received and there was no proof in terms of an acknowledgement receipt.

When evaluating an EDI solution for Sage Software there are a number of Sage Software ISV partners out in the Market place, several are very similar in terms of the same sort of look and feel as using an email solution. And all of them will have a basic goal in mind and that is allowing the customer to have EDI with their trading partners.

Software is given away, what’s the catch?

Many companies give away their EDI software only to recoup on VAN fees or Kilo-Character charges you should ask yourself how much is this EDI deal going to really cost me and/ or the company? Do I have to have a person run this daily or add this routine on top of an already busy person in the company? How cost efficient can that really be and how do I solve that?

You can with unattended integration and having a solution in place that can handle all levels of communications and have the flexibility for you to either have your own communication or a more Hands-Off solution that includes everything from the connections to the communication with no monthly fees. It is possible.

Smoke and Mirrors

The EDI solutions that are based on an email style interface are good to get you by for basic EDI, that is handling typical EDI documents such as a Purchase Order (850), Invoice (810) or an Advanced Shipping Notice ( ASN / 856) . How do they handle other documents such as 3PL warehousing, do they have the expertise internally to program this or do they have to outsource this work to a third party programmer? Who supports it if something goes wrong?

When evaluating such as solution, ask yourself is this type of solution really integrated or do you need someone to highlight the orders or manage your EDI periodically during the day, click a button and then access some sort of stored procedure. Sure it sounds great on the surface and sure the order eventually shows up in your accounting package, but how did it get there? Can I make a change to match my specific business process?

Companies are unique

An EDI solution should not control you; you should be able to control your EDI. The fact is no two businesses are alike, so the way you sell shoes to Wal-Mart may be completely different to how your competitor does it. You should be able to make changes to how your Purchases Orders are brought into your accounting package as well as how they are sorted internally to match your business process. Are you able to manage or change your EDI solution so that it matches your companies unique requirements or allow for growth the way you need it handled and not how it’s set up for you and your expected to follow it.


Here are some questions that may be useful for you:

• Does the EDI provider write this stored procedure or is it customized and supported by an entirely different company?
• Once this procedure is executed is it just dumping the file into your database and possibly causing data corruption to occur?
• Is your EDI solution integrated or based on clicking a button to initiate a stored procedure?
• Does it have XML support?
• Does it support AS2 and/Or charge you for it when communicating to an EDI partner that requests it?
• Is the ASN really integrated?
• Have they or will they have to modify my ERP source code in order to have EDI working?
• Did I pay for a Web forms solution when I could have gone integrated?
• Can I grow with this solution?
• What is the migration path to an In-House solution?
• Can I also integrate my Webstore or even integrate with eBay?
• Can I choose a Translator or do I need one at all? Is it part of the solution?
• How much are my VAN fees and how can I control or cut those costs way down while improving productivity?
• Does this solution save me the cost of paying someone to do the EDI imports or will it add “work” to their already busy day?



Thanks alot,

Wayne Thompson
Sage Software eCommerce Account Manager
eBridge Software