Chapter 9 EDI Glossary: The Terms You Will Actually Meet in Ecommerce

Core concepts

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) The structured, system-to-system exchange of business documents between trading partners, in a format both sides have agreed on in advance.

Trading partner Any business you exchange EDI documents with: a supplier, distributor, retailer, manufacturer, or logistics provider.

Trading Partner Agreement The document that defines how two organizations exchange electronic documents, including which documents, which methods, and who is responsible for what.

Transaction set A single complete business document in EDI format, such as a purchase order or an invoice.

B2B integration The wider practice of connecting business systems between organizations. EDI is one method within it, alongside APIs and file transfers.

Transaction codes

846 Inventory Advice Communicates supplier stock availability. In ecommerce it is usually the highest-frequency document, because channel listings depend on it.

850 Purchase Order The order itself, sent from buyer to supplier. It assigns the purchase order number that every later document in the chain must reference.

855 Purchase Order Acknowledgement The supplier's line-by-line response to a purchase order, confirming what will actually ship, what changed, and what was rejected.

856 Advance Ship Notice (ASN) Communicates shipment details including carrier and tracking number. Also called a ship confirm. In EDI, ASN always means Advance Ship Notice.

810 Invoice The supplier's bill for a shipped order. It is not an acknowledgement, and it is normally only valid for items that have already shipped.

832 Price/Sales Catalog Carries product details and pricing rather than live stock levels. Used for catalog setup and price updates.

870 Order Status Report Reports the status of items on a purchase order. In Flxpoint it is used for item cancellations only.

997 Functional Acknowledgement Confirms that a file arrived and could be read. It does not confirm that the business content was correct or that anything was processed.

Standards and versions

EDI standard The rules defining how a business document is structured and interpreted.

ASC X12 The dominant EDI standard in North America, maintained by the Accredited Standards Committee.

EDIFACT The international EDI standard developed under the United Nations, common in cross-border trade.

VICS A retail-oriented set of X12 conventions. Our preferred inbound version is 004010VICS.

Version The specific release of a standard a partner requires. Two partners on different versions of the same standard still need separate handling.

File structure

Interchange A complete EDI transmission, wrapped in control structure that identifies sender, receiver, and control numbers.

Envelope The control structure around the documents in a transmission, carrying the routing and identification information.

Functional group A set of transaction sets of the same type bundled inside one interchange.

Segment A logical group of related data elements inside a document, such as an address or a line item.

Data element A single unit of information within a segment, such as a quantity or a date.

Qualifier A code that gives meaning to the element next to it, for example identifying whether a number is a UPC or a SKU.

Delimiter The characters separating segments and elements in a file. Our defaults are a tilde, an asterisk, and a greater-than sign.

Control number An identifier assigned to a transmission, group, or transaction set. Header and trailer control numbers must match, and a mismatch is a common cause of structural rejection.

Implied decimal A convention where decimal points are omitted and assumed. On an invoice total, twelve dollars is written as 1200.

Connections and protocols

SFTP Secure File Transfer Protocol, a method of transferring files over an encrypted SSH connection. Flxpoint EDI connections run over SFTP.

AS2 Applicability Statement 2, a protocol for exchanging documents securely over HTTP. Widely used in enterprise EDI, and not supported by Flxpoint EDI.

VAN (Value-Added Network) A third-party network service that routes EDI documents between partners and provides mailboxing and tracking.

Inbound and outbound directories The file locations where each side deposits and collects documents. In our setup, suppliers place files in an inbound directory and collect ours from an outbound directory.

Implementation terms

Implementation guide A trading partner's technical specification: required documents, segments, elements, qualifiers, connection method, and testing process. It is the authority for that relationship.

Data mapping Connecting fields in your system to the segments and elements a partner's document requires.

EDI translation Converting between your internal data format and the standardized EDI format.

Validation Checking a document against syntax rules, required fields, and partner rules before it is processed or sent.

Certification A partner's testing process that must be completed before production transactions are allowed.

Exception handling The process for identifying, investigating, correcting, and resending transactions that failed.

Order routing Deciding which fulfillment source or supplier should receive an order, based on defined business rules. It happens before the EDI document is generated.

Chargeback A financial penalty a trading partner applies when documents or shipments do not meet their requirements.

What should you do next?

For how these documents work together, read EDI transaction codes. For implementation, see how to set up EDI and the implementation checklist. Full segment-level specifications live in our EDI documentation.

Frequently asked questions

What does ASN stand for in EDI?
ASN stands for Advance Ship Notice, the X12 856 transaction. It communicates shipment contents, carrier, and tracking details. The same acronym means something different in networking, which causes regular confusion.

What is the difference between EDI 850 and EDI 810?
The 850 is the purchase order sent by the buyer. The 810 is the invoice sent by the supplier after shipment. They sit at opposite ends of the same transaction.

What does an EDI 997 do?
It confirms that a file was received and was structurally readable. It does not confirm that the content was correct or that anything downstream was processed.

What is EDI mapping?
Mapping connects the data in your systems to the fields, segments, and qualifiers a trading partner's document requires, so the same information means the same thing on both sides.

What is a qualifier in EDI?
A qualifier is a code that explains the element beside it. It is how a file distinguishes a UPC from a SKU, or a ship-to address from a bill-to address, when both are formatted identically.