A retailer that buys from you on EDI sends its purchase orders as X12 documents and expects an acknowledgment, a ship notice and an invoice back the same way, each to its own guide. The app reads and writes those documents itself, keeps each retailer's rules as settings, prints the GS1 carton labels, and moves the files through a mailbox or by hand. A retailer is one of your wholesale accounts with this set up on it. The module is switched on under Admin, Business, Wholesale, Selling to retailers with EDI; it then lives under Products, Wholesale, Retailers (EDI).
Nothing is sent until you send it: what the app writes waits under Files to send until a person sends it or the clock sends it through a mailbox you connected.
1. The retailer as a trading partner
- The retailer needs an approved wholesale account with terms: it pays its invoices on account. Set that up first under Wholesale, Accounts.
- Under Retailers (EDI), Retailers, choose New retailer and pick the account.
- Fill in who they are in EDI (their ISA qualifier and id, their GS id) and who you are to them (yours, as they set you up), from the retailer's EDI guide or the welcome letter its EDI team sent. Add your GLN or DUNS where they ask for it, and the vendor number they gave you.
- Tick the documents you exchange. The 997 always goes both ways.
- Choose how files move: files you download and upload yourself, an SFTP mailbox, or a VAN's HTTPS mailbox (section 7).
- Pick the shape its rules start from: the usual shape, big-box store-ready cartons, or big-box standard pack. Each is a starting point; check every rule under Their rules against the retailer's own guide and change what differs. A new retailer is set up, not coded.
- Leave it Being set up while you fill it in. Set it to Testing while the retailer certifies you (documents go marked as tests; orders taken in are real orders), then Live.
Someone whose login includes Set up retailers and send does this; an owner always can. Working the orders takes Retailers' orders.
2. Their rules
Under Their rules, each retailer's guide becomes settings:
- Identifiers: what they name items by, and in which order (their item number, UPC, GTIN-14, your style number); whether stores are named by their own number or a GLN; which references go on each document (vendor number, department, bill of lading, PRO number).
- Timing: how many hours they allow for the acknowledgment and the ship notice, how many days early an order may ship, and how many days past the cancel date an order is still taken.
- The Ship Notice: pick and pack (shipment, order, carton, item) or standard pack (shipment, order, item, cartons); whether it is told store by store; whether the invoice may only follow the ship notice.
- The carton label's zones, top to bottom, to the retailer's guide.
- Separators and the X12 version their documents use.
- Their Deduction Codes: what each code on their remittances means and what it is in the books. A code not listed is kept as other, with the code, so nothing is lost.
- Notes from their guide, for the next person.
3. Stores and distribution centers
Under Stores, add each store and distribution center by the number the retailer uses on its purchase orders, with its name, address and GLN. Paste a list to add many at once. A purchase order that spreads an item across stores (SDQ) is read store by store; a carton marked for a store prints that store on its label and goes under that store on the ship notice.
4. Items
Under Items, give each product the retailer buys its retailer item number and the pack it orders by: the each, the inner pack or the case. The checklist beside each item says what it still needs before it can be sold to them:
- A UPC or EAN on the unit that checks out, under the product's Packing.
- The case with its GTIN-14, size and weight, when they order by the case; an inner pack with its own GTIN when they order by the inner pack.
- Your style number, when their guide asks for it.
- A price on the account's price list.
UPC label prints the item's barcode at true size. Each product's page shows its checklist for every retailer it is set up with. Match an unknown item on the first purchase order that names it and tick Keep the retailer's number; the setup fills itself in.
5. From purchase order to invoice
- Take in a file: upload what the retailer or your VAN sent, or paste its text. The app reads the interchange, checks each document against its schema and the retailer's rules, writes the 997 for you to send, and puts each purchase order on the desk. A file with a problem is kept with what the checks found; a duplicate control number is refused. A retailer on a mailbox is read by the clock.
- Match any line the app could not place: pick the item, its option and the pack. The desk lists lines to match first.
- Acknowledge: each line as ordered, with a change (fewer, or a later ship day within the window), or rejected, with a note for the retailer when you like. What you accept becomes a wholesale order on the account at the purchase order's prices, with its invoice on the account's terms, and the 855 is written. A retailer's cancel is answered by canceling the order, or keeping it when it already shipped.
- Pack the order at the pack station as any order: scan each unit into a carton, close it with its weight, and mark which store each carton is for when the retailer ships store-ready. The cartons get their SSCC from your GS1 prefix. Print the retailer's labels: the 4 by 6 inch GS1-128 label with the zones their guide asks for, each barcode at true size.
- Book the freight and hand the cartons over from Shipping. The ship notice carries the carrier, PRO and bill of lading.
- Write the ship notice from the order once the truck leaves. The desk says when it is due and when it is late, by the hours in their rules. The 856 is read back before it is kept.
- Write the invoice: the 810, from the wholesale invoice already on the account.
- When the retailer's remittance (820) comes in, each line is placed on its invoice and the payment recorded in the books. A short-pay becomes a deduction under the code's meaning, on the Deductions desk, for you to accept or dispute. A line that names no invoice you know waits for a person to place it or set it aside.
- The retailer's 997 for what you sent marks each document acknowledged or rejected; a rejection comes to the desk.
Write an inventory advice (846) from the retailer's page when they ask for stock on hand.
6. The desk
Retailers (EDI) opens on what waits on you: lines to match, orders to acknowledge, cancellations to answer, ship notices and invoices to write, remittance lines to place, documents the retailer rejected, and files to send. Orders lists every purchase order with where it stands; Documents every document in and out with its control numbers and the text itself. The order's own page under Orders shows its EDI trail, and the account's page shows its retailer setup.
7. How files move
- Files you move yourself: download each file that is ready, put it in your VAN's web mailbox or the retailer's portal, then Mark it sent. Upload what they sent you. This works with any VAN today.
- An SFTP mailbox: the retailer's own server or your VAN's. Connect it under Admin, Apps, EDI mailbox, with the host, folders and sign-in they gave you; the connection is tried before it is kept, and the server's key fingerprint is checked on every connection when they give one.
- A VAN's HTTPS mailbox: the same, over HTTPS with the token the VAN gave you.
The clock reads every connected mailbox and sends what is ready, every few minutes; Send and read now does it at once. Each file is read back after it is written, so what you send is what the app can read. AS2 is next: it needs certificates and a provider, which are the owner's choice; until then a VAN carries AS2 for you. A demo business sends and receives nothing.
Written down
Every document in and out is kept with its file, its control numbers and the 997 that answered it. Taking a file in, matching, acknowledging, writing a ship notice or invoice, placing a remittance line and sending are each in Activity, in words.
Best practices
- Read the retailer's guide twice, once before the shape is picked and once against Their rules, and write what you learned under Notes from their guide.
- Finish the items before the first order: a UPC that checks out and a case with its GTIN-14, size and weight save a chargeback later.
- Acknowledge within their window even when you will change lines; a late 855 is a chargeback of its own.
- Mark every carton for its store before the ship notice is written, and print the label from the carton, never retyped.
- Write the ship notice the day the truck leaves; the desk shows the hours left.
- Place every remittance line, and dispute a deduction you do not agree with from the Deductions desk while the retailer's window is open.
- Keep the module in Testing until the retailer says you passed; the orders are real either way.