ediviewer Blog
Short, practical posts for people who work with EDI files.
- What is EDI, and why is it still used in the API era?Why does a 40-year-old format survive alongside REST APIs? The answer is commercial, not technical.
- What does D.96A mean? Understanding EDIFACT versionsEvery part of "D:96A:UN" in the UNH line, and why the version matters.
- The UNA segment: delimiters are not always the sameIf a file opens with UNA, forget the defaults — that line says which character does what.
- DTM: which date is which?A message can hold five different DTMs. The qualifier says which one is delivery and which is the document date.
- Quantity and unit: what a QTY segment saysOrdered, despatched or received? And what happens when PCE and KGM get mixed up.
- Why was my invoice rejected? An INVOIC checklistEDI invoices usually come back for matching and totalling errors, not for their content.
- Exporting an EDI file to ExcelWhat to watch for when flattening a segment structure into rows and columns.
- How much should a small business spend on EDI?Does a company receiving 20 orders a month need full automation? Usually not.
- Is EDI the same as e-invoicing?Both carry electronic invoices, but they differ in purpose, audience and whether they are compulsory.
- CONTRL: did my file arrive?The EDI equivalent of a read receipt is the CONTRL message. What it means when none arrives, or when it carries errors.