Proactive vs Reactive: Staying on Top of a Tricky Trading Partner

We know that catching discrepancies within your EDI data before they become major headaches is critical to the health of your business. Our “Proactive vs. Reactive” series of posts will examine how Syncrofy’s various features help you stay on top of your operation to identify data inconsistencies that may require extra attention and promote accountability within your team.  In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can use Syncrofy to stay up to date on your trading partners and gain immediate visibility into potential issues.

So you’ve got a bunch of trading partners but don’t have a way to gain visibility into what they’re doing. Sounds like a migraine waiting to happen.

Things like missed payments, partner exceptions, sent and received documents (e.g. Functional Acknowledgments), and various technical issues can all manifest themselves into larger problems without the right tracking tool in place.

Luckily for you, there’s Syncrofy.

Syncrofy enables you to work more closely with your EDI data and set notifications for irregularities that may occur within the transactions you have with your partners. This allows you to proactively plan for issues that may occur and solve them quickly.

Let’s say you want to take a look at trends regarding your trading partners. Dashboards allow you to create dynamic visuals to help you do just that. For example, you can create a bar graph displaying your top five partners with the most exceptions. This enables you to highlight areas of concern relating to specific partners.

You may notice that a high percentage of your exceptions are coming for a single partner. In that case, you can dive deeper into that partner to remedy the problem (e.g. an account setup issue or other process that can be streamlined).

But what if you’re onboarding a new partner and waiting for them to send their first document? With Syncrofy, there’s no more gray area or remaining in the dark. In a few easy steps you can set up a notification to alert you when it’s sent; enabling you to track it through the system.

Another common issue for companies who work with EDI is “the case of the missing 997.” Often times, a partner may forget to acknowledge receipt of a transaction and following up on the matter can even slip your mind.

But Syncrofy allows you to take the manual process out of the equation. Simply set up a document filter or run a report to shed some light on the matter and figure out exactly where that response went.

Having the ability to proactively keep tabs on your trading partners will save you valuable time down the line because you won’t be playing catch-up.

The fact of the matter is that most companies wait until the end of each month (or sometimes the end of a quarter) to have a review with their trading partners, which can be when issues are discovered. This makes it difficult to detect patterns quickly.

For example, if an issue occurred on the 2nd of the month and you’re not meeting with your partner until the 30th, you’ll be in full-on crisis mode by the time you have the review.

Who wants to be scrambling to fix a problem that could’ve been handled early on?

With Syncrofy, there’s no more running around trying to turn back the clock to solve time-sensitive problems. Simply view a dashboard or run a report daily to stay current on your entire business!

Bottom line? Staying on top of your partners through Syncrofy can save you valuable time and allow you to have immediate visibility in potential issues with trading partners.

To learn more about how Syncrofy can help you stay proactive when it comes to your trading partners, check out www.syncrofy.com.