SAP — short for System Applications and Products in Data Processing — is one of the most popular pieces of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software worldwide. Tens of thousands of businesses use it to streamline finance, accounting, supply chain, and other business processes. If your business depends on SAP, you may also need to standardize your electronic data interchange (EDI) practices across multiple partners — a process that, unfortunately, is a lot more complex in practice than it might seem.
EDI for SAP can be a crucial part of a successful business, and it can also be immensely difficult to set up and enforce without help from a dependable EDI VAN provider. BOLD VAN has solutions for your unique business needs. We can ensure you get the most out of your ERP procedures without overcomplicating the backend or interactions with your partners.
The Basics of SAP EDI
Put simply, EDI is how businesses exchange information in a standardized format that allows everyone involved to read, authenticate, and store the data. These transactions are often invoices and other business documents, as well as exchanges of currency. Integrating EDI into SAP means standardizing how data is exchanged within the processes managed by SAP.
Integrating EDI into SAP means your outgoing messages are transformed into a standard format before they are sent to external systems. Partners can likewise send standardized messages confirming receipt of data. In SAP, this is typically done through the IDoc interface, which then communicates with an EDI subsystem that converts ingoing and outgoing data as needed.
This setup decreases both the physical paperwork and the manual labor that was once necessary to keep track of transactions between business partners. Through an EDI VAN provided by BOLD VAN, you can communicate with partners and customers in real-time, automate various housekeeping tasks, reduce manual data entry errors, and give your whole organization a clearer picture of every piece within your ERP system.
How Can BOLD VAN Help?
Although value-added networks predate the modern Internet by several years, they are still valuable to EDI transactions within SAP and in various other programs. Essentially, a VAN gives you customizable control over how your EDI interactions with partners are standardized, optimizing your operations and improving communication.
BOLD VAN provides VAN services with a per-partner pricing model, which is a departure from the more common (and expensive, in the long run) per-kilo-character of data pricing model used by many other EDI providers. We can help you become EDI compliant with SAP and many other companies, too.
Contact BOLD VAN for Assistance with SAP EDI
The prospect of setting up an EDI VAN can be intimidating, particularly if you already have well-established procedures within a software platform like SAP. Fortunately, help is available from the dedicated and knowledgeable team at BOLD VAN. We are ready to provide the customized support you need to get the optimized and cost-effective results you want.
EDI for SAP could be the future of your unique business. Call today to discuss how we can make this happen.