EDI - Electronic Data Interchange

Section 1	If you want to know what EDI is all about.
Section 2	If you know all about EDI and want to know how Entity can help.
Section 3	If you think that EDI is legacy technology and are seeking the next generation.

Section 1 - What is EDI?

Electronic Data Interchange is the name given to structured exchange of information between trading partners.

For example consider the common business process of purchasing.

company A send out a purchase order to B
company B sends back an acknowledgement
company A on receipt of goods issues a goods received note
company B issues an invoice

For 20 years or more EDI has been saving many companies millions of hours and millions of pounds in handling the paper, and what is more, doing the whole thing in hours and minutes rather than days and weeks, and doing it right with all transactions tracked and traceable due to the robust infrastructure of the EDI world.

This has all been achieved by various standards bodies agreeing the message sets covering an Invoice, a Credit Note and so on. The message sets have been established and revised based on use in a wide variety of industries and a wide variety of business situations so they are both flexible and proven.

The EDI world is filled with acronyms and terms for the standards, the messages, and the methods of communication. But the basic process is the same for all.

It is here now and it works.

Section 2 -->