The differences between EDI X12 and EDIFACT

 

Question: Hi Roger, we recently got a contract to supply an organization in Germany which will require EDI. This would normally be no problem to us as we have been doing EDI with our North American trading partners for over four years; however, our new German contract requires us to use EDIFACT rather than X12 as their preferred EDI standard. Could you highlight the main differences between X12 and EDIFACT and suggest what I should do?

 

Answer:  In 1979 the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) chartered the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 to develop uniform standards for inter-industry electronic exchange of business transactions – now known commonly as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). These transaction sets, abbreviated to X12, are the predominant EDI standards used by organizations in North America today.

In 1986, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) approved the acronym "UN/EDIFACT," which translates to United Nations Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport. UN/EDIFACT is an international EDI standard designed to meet the needs of both government and private industry. EDIFACT is the most popular worldwide EDI data standard outside of North America.

Here is a brief list of some of the different names given to documents in the X12 and EDIFACT transactions sets. You will notice that X12 assigns numeric values to documents whereas EDIFACT lists names or abbreviations.

TRANSACTION SET/DOCUMENT	X12 SET	EDIFACT
PRODUCT/PRICING TRANSACTIONS
Price Sales Catalog	832	PRICAT
Price Authorization Acknowledgement/Status	845	ATHSTS
Specification/Technical Information	841	PRDSPE
Request For Quotation	840	REQOTE
ORDERING TRANSACTIONS
Purchase Order	850	ORDERS
Purchase Order Acknowledgement	855	ORDRSP
Purchase Order Change	860	ORDCHG
Purchase Order Change Acknowledgement	865	ORDRSP
MATERIALS MANAGEMENT TRANSACTIONS
Planning Schedule/Material Release	830	DELFOR
Shipping Schedule	862	DELJIT
Production Sequence	866	--
Ship Notice/manifest (ASN)	856	DESADV
SHIPPING/RECEIVING TRANSACTIONS
Shipment Information (Bill of Lading)	858	IFTMCS
Receiving Advice	861	RECADV
Non-conformance Information-Disposition Transaction, Cause/Correction	842	NONCON
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TRANSACTIONS
Inventory Inquiry/Advice	846	INVRPT
Product Transfer and Resale Report	867	SLSRPT
FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS
Invoice	810	INVOIC
Freight Invoice	859	IFTMCS
Payment order/Remittance Advice (EFT)	820	REMADV

There are many differences between an X12 and an EDIFACT document and I would recommend that if you do not have the capabilities to do EDIFACT in house that you outsource to a strong global EDI solution provider who can handle both data formats. At B2BGateway, we have offices located in North America, Europe and Pacific/Asia regions and can handle all internationally recognized EDI data formats including not only X12 and EDIFACT but many, many more (Tradacoms in the UK for example).

For further information on B2Bgateway’s international data standards capabilities please visit www.B2BGateway.Net or call (401) 491 9595. 

Roger Leyden is Director of Global Business Development at B2BGateway.

 

Why outsourcing EDI may make sense for your organization.

Although EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) has been around since the late 1970’s, it started gaining increased traction in the early to mid 1990’s. The increased popularity in the 1990’s was mainly due to a heavy push from large organizations with large transactional volumes to reduce costs and increase efficiencies through automation.

Unfortunately, the very thought of EDI, can be daunting for an organization that has not used EDI before or has limited IT resources. The initial reaction is that EDI has been ‘forced’ on their organization by a large retailer or trading partner. Terms such as ANSI X12, UN/EDIFACT, Tradacoms, VAN, AS2, seem like Double Dutch and better still, the traditional English language has been replaced by numeric values, e.g. a Purchase Order is now called an 850, an Invoice becomes an 810, a Ship Notice becomes an 856, and so on. After a short period in production, the new EDI user will suddenly understand the benefits of EDI for their organization – reduced errors, shorter order to payment cash cycles, and reduced costs.

As mentioned above, there are many standards and communication protocols associated with EDI – in North America ANSI X12 is the predominant EDI standard, whereas in Europe and the Far East a far more popular standard is UN/EDIFACT. Some trading partners prefer to communicate through a VAN (Value Added Network), whereas others will prefer AS2 or FTP. Add to this mix a myriad of 318+ recognized EDI documents, customized mapping and reporting functions and it is clear to see why EDI becomes a daunting task for any organization.

It is at this stage that outsourcing your EDI requirements should make sense to your organization. Outsourced EDI solution providers come in various shapes and sizes. Some providers will require you to invest in your own mapping solution and they then develop the maps. Then there are others, like B2BGateway.Net, that provide the entire service and are also the first point of contact between your organization and your trading partners to resolve any EDI issues that may arise.

For further information on B2BGateway.Net’s fully outsourced EDI solutions please visit www.B2BGateway.Net or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net