What all will EDI do? 1

[normap]

I was wondering if anyone could explain what all EDI will do? Is it possible to print out the invoices I receive from my supplier rather than update my system with them? Is there a way to query invoices or Purchase Orders without having to update the system?

I really don't know a whole lot about EDI but I need to start downloading my invoices from our major supplier through EDI and because all of our locations are not "ON LINE" I can't have the invoices going into our Accounts Payable, I have to print them and send by email.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

[keller999]

Some thoughts on your questions...

"Is it possible to print out the invoices I receive from my supplier rather than update my system with them?"

EDI Ken says: Depends on what software you use to handle your EDI. By and large, handling EDI is the function of an EDI translator. All EDI Xlators I've seen will allow you to print the raw EDI spaghetti. I"d rather not give that to my AR/AP people though! Most EDI Xlators will have either overlays, or templates, or print forms...whose function is to convert the raw EDI spaghetti into a human readable document...which can be printed and manually dealt with. If you have a low volume of documents to process, this is the cheapest way to go to become EDI compliant. As your volume increases; it behooves you to integrate the EDI transaction into your accounting/shipping systems.


"Is there a way to query invoices or Purchase Orders without having to update the system?"

EDI Ken says: Well - I'm not 110% sure what you're getting at here. Of the several EDI Xlators I've seen - the best at this is a now defunct product called STX-Dos. It has nice searching facilities so you can try to find a single PO or invoice, or you can search on say all releases from say Chrysler for say March, 2003 - print just those releases to a text file - and then search the text file for the part # to find the release with the highest demand on it...(as an example)

Other EDI xlators are pitiful when it comes to this...E Version 5 comes to my mind...although that might just be me being unfamiliar w/ the product...



"I really don't know a whole lot about EDI but I need to start downloading my invoices from our major supplier through EDI and because all of our locations are not "ON LINE" I can't have the invoices going into our Accounts Payable, I have to print them and send by email."

EDI Ken says: You'll need to find out how your trading partner expects you to do this. Most likely it'll either be through a 3rd party VAN (value-added-network) - or it will be a direct communication; which very well may be ftp based.

EDI documents are just text files - so you could try to create them programatically yourself. In your case - for receiving them - if you can get them in house - you'll have raw EDI spaghetti. COnverting that into a human readable document is the function of an EDI xlator - although if it's just invoices from a single trading partner, you could pretty much write even a q-basic program to convert it to a human readable document - although storing your invoices for retrieval purposes 3 months down the line would be a tougher job...


HOpe some of this helps. Good luck...-EDI Ken

 

[normap]

Thanks Ken! You have given me alot of information. I am sure it will help me immensley.

Thanks again for your help

 

[Last1Out]

Some additional Comments and observation:

Since this is your first trip to "EDI Land", do some
research on the products and services available in today's
market. Check the Web - Google, Yahoo... your preference
for "EDI". Make sure the product or service will grow with
your business. Make sure the product or service has great
support, not just good support.

In the process you outlined, it sounds like your supplier
is going to send you invoices from a central process.
However, your approval process is at the field level, and
A/P only enters approved invoices. If this is the
scenario, have your EDI process or a sub-application send
the E-mail to the field locations, and print those invoices
that are approved by the field and returned to you.

One of the original objectives of EDI was to reduce
document processing cost, so think ahead and turn the process
around ....start ussuing your Purchase Orders
via EDI to all suppliers.

 

[normap]

Thanks Last1Out! You hit the nail on the head so to speak. I never even thought of sending and receiving the branch location invoices by EDI. If that could be done it would cut down time and expense as most of our locations are more than an hour from head office.

I will do some more research on Yahoo and Google and see what I can find.

Thanks Again!