The EDI 855 (Purchase Order Acknowledgement) is a key element of compliance for many retail trading partners. Often, suppliers are expected to send it back almost immediately, and an inability to do that will create issues that damage the business relationship. Staying compliant with the EDI 855 standards of your trading partners can be demanding, but an EDI provider that automates the process and creates a solution for your workflow will meet the challenge.
Why has the EDI 855 become even more important?
No surprise here—eCommerce. In a world where consumers have become accustomed to overnight or even same-day delivery, and retailers with robust online sales are determined to meet these expectations, suppliers need to be agile and super-responsive.
The days of retail as a 9-to-5 business are long over. Today, shoppers make purchase decisions when it suits them, and that can be when they’re watching Netflix on the couch at midnight. Your retail trading partners are, as a result, operating on the same schedule.
Start by automating the EDI 855.
With the right EDI software, there’s no need for someone to manually send the Purchase Order Acknowledgement. Remember that humans operate on schedules, but software doesn’t need to eat, drink, or sleep.
When an order comes in, software like our Lingo platform ensures the EDI 855 goes out—automatically. Remember that retailers have sophisticated automation themselves—their system can be automated to cancel an order if the EDI 855 is not returned right away, and find another supplier to fulfill it. Losing an order just because your system didn’t acknowledge it quickly enough is painful.
Not only does an automated EDI 855 process ensure that you stay compliant, it will also help your business.
Improve your relationships with retailers. Your trading partners are under ever-increasing pressure to meet the needs of impatient shoppers. They are also carrying less inventory themselves, and feature items on their web sites that suppliers need to be able to ship directly to consumers. It’s no surprise the suppliers they choose to work with not only have great products, but can also be counted on to deliver as promised. Stability and consistency matters more than ever, and a brand that turns around the EDI 855 quickly is likely to receive more orders in the future.
Reduce time demands on you and your staff. With an automated EDI 855 process in place, you and your team have one less detail to worry about when you’re working to remain EDI-compliant. With staff not required to send the Purchase Order Acknowledgement manually, they are freed up to focus their time on finding new business or ensuring that other parts of your operation are running as efficiently as possible.
Avoid costly chargebacks. Failing to provide an EDI 855 is regularly cited as one of the most common ways that suppliers wind up facing chargebacks. By automating the EDI 855 with our Lingo software, you eliminate the need for humans to manually complete the task. (We think humans are great, by the way, but we also know that humans shouldn’t be awake 24 hours a day, or worried all the time.) What’s more, if the Lingo platform detects a compliance issue, it won’t send the affected EDI 855.
Capture every order. You have worked hard to develop a product line, find manufacturing partners, and build a brand. The last thing you want to do is miss out on a sales opportunity because you failed to provide a Purchase Order Acknowledgement within a narrow time window. But that’s exactly what can happen when an EDI 855 isn’t returned quickly enough. The retailer or the retailer’s software moves on, either finding another supplier or telling a shopper that they can’t provide the item. When the EDI 855 is automated and returned immediately, that won’t happen.
Staying compliant with the EDI 855 can be one of the more challenging requirements of your order processing operation. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be. When automation is built into your EDI and order processing software, documents can be sent without human intervention. Not only will your company enjoy stronger retailer relationships, you and your team will sleep better knowing that you won’t miss out on orders.
Sleep is good. Automate the EDI 855 to stay compliant.
