It’s no secret that our EDI2XML team enjoys helping companies increase efficiency, improve partner relationships, speed the flow of goods to customers and improve shipping accuracy by enabling them to easily exchange documents electronically between trading partners. (“EDI communication advantages”).
But how do they do this, and for how much? We want our customers to fully understand the processes involved in our EDI translation service and all the costs involved. It’s all about providing a service to businesses so that they benefit fully t and don’t have to cause them any more problems, queries or headaches. So let’s start at the beginning;
What is EDI2XML as a service and how does it work?
This EDI service is beneficial for companies that don’t have an in-house IT or EDI team, or are planning to downsize their IT department. This service enables our team of EDI experts to act as an intermediary between your company and your trading partners (Suppliers). First we set you up to start exchanging with your associates, then once everything is configured and ready to go, you’ll be able to send and receive EDI documents automatically with minimal human involvement.
EDI configuration
The initial configuration for trading partners and the EDI documents to be exchanged include the following:
- Analyze EDI project requirements and needs
- Build and establish connectivity between your platform and ours
- Define the folder structures to be transferred and build the translation engine
- Build the engine that will return all incoming documents from the business partner and convert them into your predefined preferred format
- Setting up accounts for all business partners on our platform
- Ensure proper installation by communicating with all business partners
- Configuration of partner document specifications
- Comprehensive data and connectivity testing
In our experience, this phase usually takes between 1 and 3 weeks, depending on the customer’s requirements. Usually the follow-up, the comings and goings, the tests with business partners and any integration requirements can take longer. (for example, if the job requires a lot of custom work).
The setup usually consists of a one-off fee, based on the time and effort involved.
Monthly communication service
Once everything has been set up correctly, documents can begin to be transferred. All incoming files (such as purchase orders) will be converted to the required file format and deposited on your FTP site (or integrated directly into your management system), and all outgoing files (ASNs and invoices) will be converted to EDI format and sent to Le partenaire commercial. For this service, there is a monthly fee comprising the total monthly volume transferred (based on the total number of Kilo characters) and our EDI2XML mailbox.
Nowadays, being EDI compliant is a necessity, and fortunately EDI is no longer complex, time-consuming and costly. The EDI2XML translation service is fast, easy and affordable, and perfect for the needs of your SME.
For more information on our EDI translation service, read our blog entitled “Understanding EDI as a service”, which you can find on the company’s blog page.
