What is EDI Outsourcing?

What is EDI Outsourcing?

EDI outsourcing is contracting with a third-party to manage EDI transactions between suppliers and trading partners. EDI means Electronic Data Interchange and SaaS EDI providers offer software applications to ensure suppliers stay compliant with the EDI requirements of retailers. Learn more about what EDI is.

Outsource EDI or manage it in-house?

When your brand gains momentum, you begin to trade with larger retailers. And once you figure out what is involved with EDI, you’ll need to decide if you should outsource your EDI or manage it yourself.

With large trading partners, an overwhelming majority of them will demand that you have EDI capabilities. What’s more, you need to handle it correctly. Mistakes can be costly, resulting in chargebacks that will cut into your margins and frustrate everyone. Good relationships with your retail trading partners are, of course, essential to your business, and errors in your EDI transactions will be damaging.

Outsourcing EDI is a solution that lets you be confident that you are staying compliant with their standards and can free you up to focus on building your business. 

At first, many companies will try to manage EDI on their own. And if your business is limited to only a few transactions each month, that may be manageable. But let’s look at reasons why you should consider outsourcing EDI.

4 Reasons to choose an EDI outsourcing provider.

1. Save valuable time: Managing EDI in-house is likely to be a major time sink that could consume major chunks of time — hours that you and your employees could use for other tasks. Before you decide outsourcing EDI is too expensive, consider the opportunity cost.
2. Save money by reducing errors: Having an outsourced EDI provider allows you to focus on the most important aspects of your business. Trying to figure out EDI on top of that can trigger mistakes and be costly. Here at eZCom, we have been providing EDI services with our Lingo software since 2000, and there is simply nothing we haven’t seen. We constantly update the mapping to retailers and our application has built-in validation checks to prevent errors, saving you money and stress!
3. Better efficiency: If you’re already using another system to run your business — an ERP or accounting software like QuickBooks — you can outsource your EDI and make it easier to merge data. At eZCom, our integration team will create a solution with our Lingo software that will make the flow of information seamless.
4. Easier shipping: Your EDI provider should have software features that make shipping efficient and fast. Our Lingo software has connectors to FedEx, UPS, USPS, Endicia, and others.

When you outsource EDI, you bring in expertise.

Here at eZCom, EDI and order processing is our business. We’ve been doing it since 2000 and we are constantly updating our Lingo software to improve it. Those updates are often made when the needs of our clients change — we want to make sure we keep pace. 

We’re invested in our business — SaaS for EDI and order processing — and you are invested in yours. Trust an expert to handle your EDI transactions and keep your focus squarely on growing your business. Click here to learn why switching your EDI provider is easy!

If you need to streamline and automate your data – reach out and we will be happy to listen and help build the perfect solution for your brand