Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

Customers want you to implement Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) so they can send and receive various messages electronically. You are probably wondering what advantages EDI can offer your company besides helping you to retain your customers. Generally speaking EDI is an absolute must for companies that have many customers who buy large quantities of goods. The flow of paper documents and telephone contacts is replaced by electronic documents. The amount of work is reduced considerably and the chance of making errors is reduced to a minimum. Another important argument for EDI is that the organization becomes quieter as messages are exchanged in a standardized electronic format with customers and suppliers. The telephones and fax machines don’t ring all day and there are no orders to be entered into the ERP system from paper documents. Instead, operations proceed smoothly.

Foodware
The Food and Beverage industry is characterized by specific requirements which can often not be catered for by a standard company-wide solution. For this reason Microsoft and its resellers have combined their many years of knowledge and experience into Foodware®. In combination with Microsoft Dynamics® NAV, Foodware® forms a fully integrated standard company-wide ERP solution specifically for food and beverage companies. Foodware is under continuous development and meets the latest industry requirements. This creates a specific solution, where costs remain manageable as the amount of customization is reduced to a minimum. Foodware has been recognized by Microsoft with the highest quality label: ‘Certified for Microsoft Dynamics’. Foodware consists of a number of integrated solutions, one of which is Foodware - EDI. With this solution, you will save a great deal of time as orders are entered automatically.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
The messages within the EDI solution are generated according to the GS1 standard, defined by the food and beverage industry. The Foodware - EDI solution supports the following messages:

• Receive sales orders: ORDERS
• Return a receipt confirmation: APERAK
• Send a shipment message: DESADV (including SSCC data)
• Send sales invoice and credit note: INVOICE

Because sales orders are entered automatically, orders can be processed faster and the chance of making errors is reduced. When a shipment message is sent, the customer knows in advance what will be received, which results in faster and more efficient processing of goods. Invoicing is also automatic, so corrections will be reduced to a minimum amount.

GS1 standard
GS1 UK is a part of the worldwide GS1 organization with more than 1.000.000 participating companies in 30 industries and 104 countries. The aim of GS1 is to improve the integration of company processes with those of suppliers and/or customers, which eliminates bottlenecks in the supply chain, thus creating increased value for consumers. The EDI messages within Foodware are set up based on the GS1 standard and specifically adjusted to meet the needs of UK retailers. Furthermore, these messages are continuously being developed and modified with every new release of Foodware.

Checks and error reporting
In addition to processing EDI-messages, Foodware - EDI does also perform a number of checks which, if necessary, will be displayed in an error report. For example, the items ordered are checked against the customer’s product range, and a check is made to see whether the address corresponds to the customer. Another check is whether the message received and the message sent correspond to the customer.

Register GTINs based on units
GTIN stands for Global Trade Item Number and is a 14-digit code which can be displayed in various ways, for example via a bar code or RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). Foodware EDI enables you to register GTINs per unit of measure. This means that fewer item numbers need to be created in your system, which is a considerable advantage for food and beverage companies. Because of product diversity, due to differences in weight, numbers of products per package, quality and so on, these companies already have to deal with large numbers of products.

Control reports
Finally, Foodware EDI provides a number of reports that show all EDI messages (incoming or outgoing) and that enable various checks to be performed. This enables control to be exercised over the flow of electronic messages.

Sending and receiving EDI-messages
This product sheet only describes how Dynamics NAV processes EDI messages. To actually send and receive an EDI message from your ERP system to that of a supplier or customer, you need an extra utility, namely NETIX client from Generix. This company is the European market leader for EDI and has 20 years of experience on the market as software editor, integrator and hoster. The NETIX client receives and sends the EDI messages through a secure internet connection. In this environment, your EDI messages will be translated from and to the EDI format used by your trading partner. If your company has an extensive volume of messages, it may be interesting to perform this message translation under your own management.

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