Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the electronic interchange of business information using a standardized format; a process which allows one company to send information to another company electronically rather than with paper.
Transactions like Purchase Orders, P.O. Acknowledgements, Advanced Shipment Notifications and Material Test Reports (MTRs aka Certifications) often involve a series of steps to process with human intervention. This takes a lot of time and makes them prone to mistakes and human errors but with the use of EDI, paper documents and data entry are eliminated, and human intervention is minimized.
Steel Manager III EDI Integration
Transmission of EDI files is very secure and can either be done through a VAN (Value Added Network) or direct (JSON) Web Services integration. Although we may need to cater for your suppliers specific format the following transactions are EDI ready within Steel Manager III (SM3). Please keep in mind that if you are doing business with a customer or supplier that is currently running SM3 they may already be EDI enabled!
▪ Purchase Order Transfer – Once a Purchase Order is processed in Steel Manager III the P.O. information is transferred to the supplier electronically (by calling the Supplier’s specific Web Service).
▪ Purchase Order Acknowledgement – When the Supplier receives the Steel Manager III Purchase Order electronically, the Supplier’s software calls our Steel Manager III Hosted Web Service to acknowledge the purchase order.
▪ Advance Shipment Notification – When the Supplier creates the shipment, the Supplier’s software calls our Steel Manager III Hosted Web Service to transfer that information electronically to SM3.
▪ AP Goods Receipts – Once Invoices are paid, a Payment Voucher is created in SM3.
▪ Test Certificate Transmission – When the supplier uploads the MTR document to the Steel Manager III Server (via FTP or Shared Drive), a call is made to the SM3 Hosted Web
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Service to Store that Test Certificate Information in SM3 and automatically attach to Receipts based on Case/Heat number.
Steel Manager III EDI Process Flow Diagram
The following schematic shows the process flow of EDI documents to and from the suppliers.
Industry Standards
We are also in the process of creating an industry-standard ANSI ASC X12 formatted EDI documents for the following;
▪ EDI850 – Purchase Order EDI855 – Purchase Order Acknowledge
▪ EDI856 – Advance Shipment Notification
Custom Programming
There could be a requirement for 4GL Solutions to create some custom programming to accommodate the EDI format that your suppliers may be using. If that is the case, we will estimate the number of hours that will be required to create the interface to your vendor, and our current hourly programming rate will apply.
