When it is in place it is excellent: structured, acknowledged, auditable and effectively free per order.
The limiting factor is setup. Each trading relationship requires both sides to map and maintain the format, so it only gets done with customers whose volume justifies the project. That is why most distributors run EDI with their largest accounts and receive emailed PDFs from everyone else.
Related terms
- Purchase orderA purchase order is the document a buyer issues to commit to a purchase — so the same document is a purchase order to the customer who sends it and becomes a sales order to the distributor who receives it.
- SISMSISM, the Scheduled Import Service Manager, is Epicor Prophet 21's native bulk order intake: it collects order files from an agreed location on a schedule, moves each from Submitted to Processing, and assigns a P21 order number.