Hi Jane - Have you posed this question to your major suppliers? I recommend you and your business manager pose this question to them.
I cannot speak for your trading partners as I have limited retail experience. However, I have worked for companies where the SDQ segment from you-know-who wreaked havoc on their systems, and they had to defacto split each PO/Line Item/Ship-to Location into a separate SO. At one client, this was a significant drag on their processing time. Why do you want to send the same purchase order number over and over again? This is plain bad business practice. Why not keep your current business model? This is what I would recommend. I'm a believer in keeping it simple. Yes, your "new" business model will probably meet significant resistance from your suppliers. Most systems have the option of allowing or not allowing duplicates, but the flag is normally turned to reject -- for a reason. How is your system going to match invoice payments if it is against the same PO number? Have you talked to your finance folks? There is business model of a blanket purchase order with a blanket PO and a release. But you would need to work with your contract lawyers and the clients to change the business model. Again -- before you get too far into the design of your new system, I'd have some serious conversations with your key suppliers. Feel free to call me 408 996-7492 if you'd wish to discuss further. I had a similar situation at a client where the designers of the new system added all the bells and whistles without thinking of the impact on the suppliers. End of story -- they had to trash their development work and learn the "KISS" concept. Regards, Susan Dear Group: Due to the upcoming implementation (next summer) of a new merchandising system, we are reviewing the current format of our 850s and 860s (as well as several other EDI documents) to determine where changes are needed. Under the current system, we issue purchase orders with a unique PO number for each ship-to location (i.e., 1 PO number = 1 ship-to location). In the new world, the same purchase order number could be used for multiple ship-to locations. We know we could change our 850 / 860 EDI format to utilize the SDQ format like this: BEG segment: PO #12345 LIN segment: Item #ABC, Total Quantity 4000 SDQ segment: Ship-to Location 1, quantity 2000; Ship-to Location 2, quantity 1500; Ship-to Location 3, quantity 500 ...but, we are hoping to minimize the impact to our EDI trading partners as much as possible, so as not to jeopardize the go-live date for the new merchandising system. Since we do not currently issue SDQ-format 850s and 860s, we are considering sending the documents in the same EDI format we send today, which for the same order described above would look like this: 850 TRANSACTION #1: ------------------------------------------------- BEG segment: PO #12345 N1 segment: Ship-to Location 1 LIN segment: Item #ABC, Quantity 2000 850 TRANSACTION #2: ------------------------------------------------- BEG segment: PO #12345 (same PO number as transaction #1) N1 segment: Ship-to Location 2 LIN segment: Item #ABC, Quantity 1500 850 TRANSACTION #3: ------------------------------------------------- BEG segment: PO #12345 (same PO number as transactions #1 and #2) N1 segment: Ship-to Location 3 LIN segment: Item #ABC, Quantity 500 The EDI format is the same as what we send today, but the difference is the same purchase order number could now appear in multiple 850s / 860s, for individual ship-to locations. We are being told we really can't consider doing this because manufacturers can't process "duplicate" PO numbers such as that described above. Based on your experience / knowledge, is it true that "duplicate" PO numbers like this will cause major problems in manufacturers' order entry / shipping / invoicing / etc. systems? As always, thanks for all your help and advice! Jayne Susan Stecklair URL: www.ecommerce-inc.com <http://www.ecommerce-inc.com> Your Leader in ERP Integration Services and B2B Products ( 408.996.7492 Business Office [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
