The Top 5 EDI Mistakes

We get it. You deal with EDI because you have to. It’s just a necessary evil you have to find a way to manage. But as you probably already realize, EDI has a critical impact on your supply chain, both long-term and on a day-to-day basis. Talking with prospects and customers over the years, we’ve heard horror stories related to the struggles of managing EDI and getting entire organizations on the same page. Here are the top five most common mistakes you might be making with your EDI:

1. You don’t have a unified plan.

One of the main issues derives from the fact that companies have tons of different EDI data across several platforms. This can be extremely confusing for stakeholders from different areas of the business and it tends to bog down supply chain processes. It also makes getting everyone on the same page a nearly impossible task. Furthermore, there’s no plan of action when errors do occur, and as a result, there may be multiple people working on remedying the same issue or nobody at all! If the problem is related to a trading partner, there’s no way for them to stay in the loop either.

2. You rely on IT too often to do the heavy lifting.

Far too often, businesses count on their IT department to answer time-consuming, EDI-related questions, when they could be tending to IT stuff and more critical business tasks. The problem is in part due to the fact that most people working in the customer service or accounts payable department don’t possess the technical know-how to solve the EDI issues on their own. This burden that is placed on IT has a trickle down effect to the entire business and often puts those poor IT guys and girls in backlog purgatory for weeks at a time.

3. You are “reactive” to issues instead of being “proactive.”

One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make when it comes to EDI is they wait for issues to arise before reacting. But it should be the other way around. The health of the supply chain depends on whether you catch these discrepancies before they happen. Yet, many don’t have a way to to be notified when action needs to be taken. For example, not receiving a payment from a trading partner can be extremely troublesome and if not discovered early can be a huge time-waster while attempting to track down the money and resolve the issue. Why not have a system in place to be alerted when you need to take action immediately?

4. You don’t have a way to visualize all of your data.

What good is all of that data if you can’t answer important business questions and gain insights from it? Many businesses don’t have a way to paint a picture for their less technical users, making all of that EDI virtually useless. You need to be able to use charts and graphs to answer supply chain process-related questions like, “Am I getting paid on time?” or “Which trading partners have the most exceptions?” It’s also important to have the ability to extract information from your EDI and put it into a report so you can make proactive adjustments to your processes.

5. You don’t have a searchable and accessible document archive.

Businesses that deal with EDI most likely have thousands of files comprised of millions of documents in their archive. And most don’t have a way to search for and find the information they need, when they need it. This problem can coincide with the reliance on IT (mentioned above) because most non-technical personnel don’t have the ability to find the information on their own. Many businesses don’t even have unified naming conventions in their document archive or a way to visualize them in chronological order, making it nearly impossible to uncover data from the past and ensure the business continues to run smoothly.

But what if there was a platform that solved all of these issues and empowered even non-technical team members to answer EDI-related questions? Luckily for you there’s Syncrofy. Syncrofy enables anyone to interact with their EDI data without the need for IT support. You can search, view, and analyze data right from your browser and gain insights by building dynamic dashboards and reports. Easily set up rules to monitor for errors and receive notifications, allowing you to act before problems arise.

To learn more about the power of Syncrofy and what it can do for your business, visit www.coenterprise.com/syncrofy.