Have any of you invested in tools to compare the content of EDI transactions to validate the accuracy of the information that the trading partners are sending you? Our ERP solution lacks the sophistication of doing this at an ERP level and instead each module (merchandising, store solution and distribution system) has different business rules and validation which forces us to work errors in 3 or more different databases.

I'm wanting to tie this validation (for example a vendor overships (856 ASN) against what I ordered on my PO 850). I want to make the comparsion and then notify the vendor of his non-compliance to the PO and have him see exactly where his error occured.

I'm looking at my current VAN provider's software and it appears it meets my requirements, I was wondering if others are doing the same and how successful it had/hadn't been.

I know that Inovis has some checking available within their systems - mostly the "Actionable Intelligence" suite they offer.

We use Island Pacific and IP does some of that checking for us on the inbound ASN. The problem becomes, however, when a vendor ships an incomplete order... Maybe we're ordering 30 products and 20 of them come from warehouse A and 10 from warehouse B. Since that's two shipments, I should receive 2 ASNs - and BOTH would fail that comparison, as they don't match the PO.

Now, overshipment is a whole different ball game. But some of it may rely upon your buying department ot keep up with any PO changes that may be required. Let's say that buying orders 1000 widgets from ABC Widget Company. ABC calls your buyer and says "hey, we've got 1200 of the widgets, and we can give you all 1200 for the cost of 1100." So your buyer does the deal, but never updates the PO. Now the ASN will fail compliance, all because the PO was never updated.

Any compliance solution on those kinds of values needs to be looked at on a case by case basis for any number of situations where the shipped quantitiy doesn't match the ordered quantity...

Just My thoughts.

Craig - Thanks for the info, totally agree that the complaince issue on an undershipment can be complicated although I can tell whether a vendor is shipping form multiple WHs or not within my ERP so I can make a pretty accurate comparison.

I am looking at Invois's AI suite (or any other simlilar type of software) and would be interested in any feedback from someone who has had experience with the software.

My ERP has some major holes in how it treats data between it's different modules. It's marketed as an integrated package and overall I'm very happy with the software but not in the EDI integration area, especially how it processes ASNs.

Appreciate the feedback.