Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

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EDI. These three little letters are enough to make most people shudder. It is a technology that many people know about but fear because of all of its complex features and standards along with the costs that are involved in implementing it. However, with Exact Software North America's integrated EDI module, you should be able to harness those fears.

Important advantages of EDI are:

• Increases accuracy
• Fully integrated with Macola ES
• Supports varying trading partner mapping specifications
• Extensive trading partner/document library minimizes costs and implementation timeline

EDI is an acronym for Electronic Data Interchange. Its primary function is to eliminate the redundancy of data that would need to be entered by a data entry clerk. It is a technology that was primarily developed for and by the transportation industry during the 1960's. Since then, it has been integrated into many different industries, but primarily by the retail industry.

Even though EDI can give you great benefits by implementing it into your daily business routines, it is usually not something that you decide to do to make your business life easier. You are usually forced into it by one of the companies that you wish to do business with such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears and others. Most of the time, it is a requirement that you implement EDI in order to do business in the retail industry. For this reason, you start doing research into what EDI is and how it will work with your internal business systems. Because of its complexity, costs and overwhelming capabilities, you can easily find yourself confused and frustrated. It is also disheartening to find that most EDI "solutions" are done by third party providers which can be extremely expensive to implement and are also customized for a specific purpose. This can be a real headache as your trading partners can make changes that need to be implemented very quickly. Most of the time, one person creates your "solution" and only they know your EDI needs and the "solution" that they have created for you. If they are not available or if they decide to leave that company, getting your needs met can be very difficult and time consuming.

In light of this, it may seem difficult to implement any EDI package. However, one person has not created Exact Software North America's EDI module. In fact, Exact Software North America is one of the only companies in our market that has a specific package that has been designed for EDI. It has been designed to meet your EDI needs and is not as expensive to implement as the other "solutions" that were mentioned above. It has been specifically designed to integrate with Exact Software North America's Order Entry module as an easier way to create multiple orders in less time and less potential for typos than a data entry clerk. It also allows you to create invoices and advanced shipping notices that can be sent to your trading partners without the expense of postage or envelopes that are normally associated in the "cost of doing business."

With the help of our EDI support staff, who have years of experience in the EDI realm as EDI Coordinators, EDI Mapping Experts and EDI Analysts, you will find that implementing EDI may not be as hard as you thought. Our knowledgeable and friendly support staff will assist you in implementing EDI in your business. We also have services available that will bring a Exact Professional Services consultant on site to help you install and instruct you in the use of EDI. In addition, we have plans on making training classes available that will be utilized through the Internet as well as a regular "sit-down" class to assist you in not just our EDI module, but also in EDI concept.

With all of our resources available to you, you have little to fear in the EDI world. Even though it may seem overwhelming at first, we are here to assist you. process.

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