Integrating Sage 300 to EDI Trading Partners is Hard and Expensive
Thursday, October 19, 2017Lindsay Hampson
Selling goods or wares to retailers is a technical and labor-intensive job. To be able to conduct business with retailers,
EDI is mandatory. Retailers using Sage 300 as their ERP are not able to submit an order for a seller’s goods until they are able to communicate with their systems through their particular standard of EDI. Each retailer accepts EDI in a slightly different composition too.
To get a proper handle on EDI compliance, many businesses hire a dedicated EDI Analyst. Have a look at www.indeed.com, where there are plenty of jobs that focus on this particular task. This full-time person typically resides in Finance or in IT, and focuses their attention on EDI compliance, penalties, retail-side changes to EDI, and must also properly process transactions to and from their Sage 300 ERP.
Problems with EDI compliance
Penalties and chargebacks result from incomplete or incorrect data passed from the business to the retailer, or from the retailer to the business.
Retail-side changes to their solution happen if the Target’s and Home Depots’ of the world make changes to their own back office systems, such as their ERP or accounting packages, they often call on their suppliers to make changes to their EDI set-up. (Extra tidbit - The top ERPs we see retailers using are Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Epicor and NetSuite)
Also, some retailers change their EDI based on a new government mandate, a warehouse system upgrade (WMS) or even a new document type that houses additional information that they now need to expose.
Day to day order and invoice transaction processing is ongoing. You can bet that is a full time job. Transaction processing is where the bulk of the burden resides. Every order, or 850, that a retailer sends to a business must be processed through to their back-office sage 300 ERP or accounting application. And every invoice, or 810, from a business to a retail trading partner must be sent correctly and timely.
If your business sells very few items in-store, perhaps manual processing is a good option for you. But once a business gets busy with 200 or more orders and invoices a month – across your many retail trading partners – the 1 full time employee will turn into 5 employees before you know it. They must be up to speed on the ins and outs of your
Sage 300 ERP, and the ever-changing EDI compliance standards for each retailer you trade with.
EDI managed in-house can be expensive
Errors and penalties, extra headcount, and volume-based pricing come at a high cost to sellers.
Over the years, these are the ways in which EDI to Sage 300 data transfer can get expensive.
- If compliance is an issue, it may hinder ability to sell with certain retailers, or expand portfolio of retailers, or suppliers
- No time for new sales generation (focused on processing what’s already been sold)
- Employing inside or outside help to build custom, one-off connections with each EDI partner and meet the partners testing requirements
- When EDI partner changes requirements, this person must go back in, rebuild connection, and re-test
- If working with an outside agency, many charge by volume, not by the connection. So if business is good for you – they will be sure to charge you for your success.
Automate Transactions Between EDI Partners and the ERP
Stop worrying about retail-side EDI. Focus on your business instead.
Automate order and invoice processing with EDI trading partners with an integration Platform as a Service vendor, such as eBridge Connections.
Benefits:
Streamline EDI processes to save time and money. Client’s of eBridge Connections have saved thousands with automation.
“Our sales team can focus on marketing and generating sales instead of spending time manually entering and sending orders. The cost of entry was minimal compared to the overall savings generated.”
eBridge Connections delivers powerful, cloud-based ERP and accounting integration solutions that automate vital business processes and eliminate the need for manual data entry. The eBridge universal integration platform supports over 30 ERP and accounting systems including products from Microsoft, Sage, SAP, NetSuite, and Epicor. With connections to the leading eCommerce and CRM applications, plus hundreds of EDI trading partners, eBridge Connections has become the integration platform of choice for businesses worldwide.
We make integrating Sage 300 with retail EDI easy and affordable