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FREE online courses on ECOMMERCE FUNDAMENTALS - Electronic Data
Interchange - Mirror image applications |
Processes, which exchange
information through EDI, are typically mirror-image business applications
owned by two or more trading partners. The most common trading partners are
vendors and customers.
An example of a mirror-image process would be the generation
of orders by a customer's purchasing system for transmission to a vendor's sales
order entry system. Another is a vendor's billing system-preparing invoices for
a customer's accounts payable system.
EDI's primary tool is software,
which transforms data from and to the defined ASC X12 standard formats.
Referring to this computer based process as translation describes its true
function.
EDI begins and ends with business applications, which share
data but have different methods of viewing and processing them:
·
A firm's purchasing system in
placing an order for an item assists the buyer by part number, quantity, and
unit price and delivery schedule.
·
These data elements are
received by the supplier's order entry system and must be used to identify the
product being purchased, coordinate delivery from inventory or schedule
manufacturing and begin the billing cycle after delivery is complete.
