B2BGateway to attend Exact Live 2016 in Utrecht

B2BGateway, the leading, global EDI and automated supply chain solution provider will be attending this years Exact Live tradeshow in Utrecht, The Netherlands from November 8-9.

Exact Live 2016 is a two day event which will take place this year in Utrecht. Day one is focused on bringing the eco-system of Exact, its partners and third party add-on providers together to discuss overall solutions and to provide 'one stop' seamless solutions to the end user. Day two opens up the event to Exact clients and prospects who can hear from many great speakers as well as learn about new updates and 3rd party software providers who can enhance the users existing system, depending on their unique requirements.

B2BGateway provides cloud based, fully integrated EDI solutions for Exact Online users which remove the need to re-key data when exchanging standard business documents such as purchase orders, invoices, shipping notices, inventory updates, etc., with trading partners. Roger Leyden, Director of Global Business Development at B2BGateway will be attending Exact Live 2016 in Utrecht. If you would like to meet with Roger during the event, please email Sales@B2BGateway.Net  

NHS adopts PEPPOL standards to enable eProcurement with Suppliers.

The NHS (National Health Service) in England recently announced the NHS eProcurement strategy, establishing actions to improve NHS data and information, requiring the use of PEPPOL specifications throughout the healthcare sector for eOrdering, eInvoicing and Advanced Shipping Notifications (ASNs).

PEPPOL stands for “Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line”. PEPPOL is a large scale pilot project that was initiated by the European Commission and is designed to facilitate electronic procurement (including e-invoicing) in Europe. PEPPOL makes e-Procurement easy as it provides a solid infrastructure for exchanging e-business information based on standards for electronic messaging.

One of the four publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom, the NHS in England provides healthcare to every legal resident in England, with most services free at the point of use. For 2014/15, the NHS England revenue budget is set at around £110 billion (US $188 bn).

The NHS eProcurement strategy is part of the Procurement Efficiency Programme. This programme sets out the actions to help the NHS save £1.5 billion by the end of the financial year 2015-2016. The new NHS eProcurement strategy will adopt PEPPOL data standards as well as GS1 barcoding standards.

GS1 is an international not-for-profit association with Member Organisations in over 100 countries. GS1 is dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains globally and across sectors. The GS1 system of standards is the most widely used supply chain standards system in the world.

If you would like to know more about the PEPPOL standards or if you trade with the NHS, please contact B2BGateway (an approved OpenPEPPOL provider) on +353 61 708533 or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net for further details.

How to use B2BGateway EDI solutions to fulfill your orders when using NetSuite and a 3PL



It is important to understand the flow of documents when working with EDI. This sequence will show you how to work with a 3PL or Third Party Logistics provider and NetSuite when integrating with a box store retailer such as Walmart. This is a typical EDI transaction where the NetSuite user uses a 3PL to store and ship goods. 

 

 



(1) A Purchase Order (850) is sent from Trading Partner to NetSuite user and is imported into NetSuite as a Sales Order (850).
(2) The Sales Order is pulled from NetSuite based on pre-determined criteria and sent as a Warehouse Ship Order (940) to the 3PL.
(3) The 3PL returns a Warehouse Ship Advice (945) which B2BGateway sends to the TP (if required) as an Advance Ship Notice (856) and also fulfills the sales order in NetSuite.
(4) The NetSuite user creates an Invoice (810) in NetSuite and based on the query rules established it will be pulled by B2BGateway and sent to the TP as an Invoice (810).

To learn more about B2BGateways fully integrated EDI solutions for NetSuite and 3PL's , please visit us online at www.B2BGateway.Net, email Sales@B2BGateway.Net or call 401-401-9595 extension 5.               

What is AS2?

Question: Hi Louisa, I have just landed a contract to supply Walmart (woohoo!) but they want me to do EDI by using something called AS2. Do you know what AS2 is?

 
Answer: Hi Jim, thanks for the question. Yes, AS2 (Applicability Statement 2) is a specification intended to ensure the proper level of security and reliability for data transmitted over the Internet. Security is achieved by using digital certificates and encryption. In short AS2 is a secure way to exchange data over the internet, in this case the exchange of PO’s, Invoices and ASNs (Advance Ship Notices) between your organization and Walmart.

Document exchange requires more than just moving data over a wire. Because business documents are the basis not only of business planning and operations, but also the legal obligations between companies, the documents must be transferred securely, processed quickly and delivered reliably. AS2 is one of a small number of emerging standards that addresses these requirements and is becoming a very popular communication protocol used in EDI today. Walmart has been one of the great advocates of the adoption of AS2 in the EDI marketplace and many more have followed since.

If you would like to learn more about AS2 or indeed any other EDI communication protocol such as VAN, FTP, FTPs, HTTP, etc please email Sales@B2BGateway.Net or call (401) 491 9595 for further details.

Louisa Gooding is Director of Sales & Marketing at B2BGateway.Net

 

Dollars, Nickels and Dimes! What do you really save with EDI?

In 2010, GS1 UK commissioned Professor Richard Wilding of the Cranfield School of Business Management to carry out a report on EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) with regard to the UK retail sector. Professor Wilding and his team performed exhaustive research and highlighted in great detail all the advantages that are normally associated with EDI: It's faster, data is more accurate, improved process efficiencies, cost savings and it eliminates paper. He also went one step further; he put the savings associated with switching from manual, paper-based processing to EDI processing into a monetary format (and even broke it down into separate sectors - Order, Invoice, ASN). For the purpose of ease and accuracy I have converted the reports Stg£ values into US$. These are the savings Professor Wilding and his team at Cranfield School of Business Management calculated:

·         Orders:                                            $23.00

·         Invoices:                                          $14.00

·         Despatch Advice (ASN)                 $19.00

Total                                                  $56.00

As can be seen from the above, by switching from a manual paper based transaction to EDI you can save your organization $56.00 per transaction in dollars, nickel and dimes. To put this in real terms, if your organization was processing 50 orders per month, and with each order a matching invoice and ASN was required, your organization would be making savings of $2,800 per month by switching from paper to EDI. Obviously the savings are much greater the more transactions your organization makes.

If you would like to read Professor Wildings full report please click here.  Alternatively, please visit one of our global offices on www.B2BGateway.Net or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net to see how B2BGateway can make your transition from paper to EDI seamless today.

Roger Leyden is Director of European Sales & Marketing with B2BGateway