Five Ways to Automate EDI and Order Processing

By eZCom Software Inc.

What's the biggest complaint about EDI and order processing? It takes too much time, and as a company grows, it takes an ever-increasing number of hours. But it doesn't have to be that way. Here are five ways to automate EDI and order processing.

Connect directly to shipping providers. How much time are you wasting transferring information from your system—whether you work directly on an EDI software platform or with EDI software integrated into your ERP, accounting software, or a WMS—to shipping providers? If you and your team are doing it manually by opening the shipper portal, copying and pasting the order information in order to generate labels or retailer-branded packing slips, you’re losing minutes on every order. Minutes that turn into hours.

With the rise of direct-to-consumer shipping by suppliers of purchases made on a trading partner website, the need to automate this process has also increased. Instead of fulfilling a few wholesale orders from a retailer and shipping to select stores or distribution centers, brands and suppliers find themselves responsible for getting hundreds or thousands of single-item orders shipped to individual addresses.

A robust EDI and order processing platform will connect the order information directly with your shipping provider—FedEx, UPS, USPS, Shipstation, or others. The label printing process should also be automated. With the right EDI and order processing provider, it’s as simple as selecting the shipment and choosing either Order Labels or creating a PDF version of the label that can be printed at a warehouse. With Lingo, even Bill of Lading documents can be generated with just a few clicks.

It’s the kind of automation that lets everyone spend less time getting a package ready for shipment

Speed the exchange of EDI documents. Many brands and suppliers have trading partners that order items in a consistent fashion. During the setup process, it only makes sense to establish pre-sets that automate the exchange of corresponding EDI documents.

For instance, a valuable EDI and order processing platform could be set to automatically generate and send the Invoice based on the information that is in the Advance Shipping Notice (ASN). Not only does this kind of automation save time, it increases accuracy because you can be confident the billing information matches the actual shipment. It means you won’t miss out on billing, and your retail trading partners won’t find themselves with an Invoice that doesn’t match what they actually received.

That’s just one example. Inventory reporting, critical for any supplier managing drop ship orders for retail trading partners, can be automated as well. The EDI 846 Inventory Feed reports in-hand quantities, and can be automated so it is updated and sent as frequently as the trading partner expects it. An EDI FTP Upload can also connect directly to Third-Party portals such as Dsco, CommerceHub, or Radial, and update inventory information automatically.

Pack the same way. During the setup process with your EDI and order processing provider, pre-sets can be used to make the packing process less time-consuming.

If you often ship the same items in the same quantities to a retail trading partner, set carton weights in advance. In our Lingo platform, this is done through the Item/Carton Maintenance feature. It lets you establish item and carton weights—after all, your products won’t typically change how much they weigh—and this data flows automatically when a Shipment is created. Instead of manually entering the same information over and over, you and your team can simply let the software do the work for you.

When your packing patterns are consistent, it’s valuable to automate as much as possible. For example, in the Lingo platform, Trading Partner Settings can be pre-set so cartons are automatically packed when the Shipment is created.

Integrate with other system software. While our Lingo platform can operate as stand-alone software, real efficiency is created when it is fully integrated into the system that powers your business. For many companies, that’s a powerful ERP like NetSuite or SAP One. Others may rely on accounting software such as QuickBooks. And some may use Warehouse Management Software to stay on top of everything.

Whatever system software your company relies on, integrating EDI and order processing software with it automates multiple tasks and eliminates high-touch, error-prone manual entry. Data will flow easily and automatically from the order into your system, and work that once relied on copy-and-paste actions is replaced by the seamless transfer of information.

A proper integration should be seamless, without clunky work-arounds. If your EDI and order processing platform can’t make the integration work to your satisfaction, it may be time to consider something new. When you choose a third-party provider, ask about their integration experience. The best ones will have vast experience working with all the major systems, and have the ability to build custom integrations that match your current workflow. A comprehensive audit of your existing processes will lead to a solution that automates multiple tasks, saves hours of time, and virtually eliminates errors that can be both costly and difficult to resolve.

Process all orders the same way. As the retail landscape has evolved, suppliers and brands operate in far more sales channels than they once did. In addition to wholesale EDI transactions, orders arrive from eCommerce stores and online marketplaces like Amazon, walmart.com, and eBay.

The right EDI and order processing software will automate the flow of information so that every order makes its way to fulfillment the same way, whether it’s the shipment of a single item to a consumer in Des Moines, a major wholesale order sent to a select group of luxury department stores, or a large number of products sent to a distribution center for fulfillment by Amazon.

With automation and the right software provider, brands and suppliers are not forced to log into multiple retailer portals to process orders. Instead, they can connect to all of them through a control center within their EDI and order processing platform. This saves time on orders both large and small, and prevents the kind of errors that can damage relationships with retail trading partners.

Now more than ever, success depends on the ability to get more done in less time. Automating EDI transactions and order processing gives you the power to do just that. Make sure your EDI and order processing provider has a suite of automation tools and features that will help you manage your business efficiently.

Founded in 2000, eZCom is a leading provider of cloud-based software that increases supply chain efficiency. Our Lingo platform is used by brands and suppliers to process EDI, eCommerce, and online marketplace orders in less time and without errors. Learn more at ezcomsoftware.com.