Intergration

On November 25, 2008. By Neil, under Executive Desk, Tech Talk.

Integrating or sharing EDI information with your business systems is a decision most EDI users face at one time or another. When a business system like ACCPAC, AccountMate, or Great Plains/Dynamics is integrated with EDI information sales orders are uploaded and invoices are downloaded to save the time of manual data entry, to speed the time of processing and to reduce operator error in entering orders.

“Nobody wants an order for 1000 pieces to be entered as 100 – particularly if the material has a significant lead time. Sales can and have been lost due to a simple error like this.”

Through experiences with our customers we have found that enormous value can be derived from integrating EDI information with business systems. But is it a no-brainer to decide to integrate? – not exactly.

The start-up costs for EDI integration can be significant. These one-time costs are weighted against the ongoing cost of labor to manually integrate and the inefficiencies of labor that could be used more fruitfully for customer service or order fulfillment.

“Integration software never takes a vacation or a sick day and the costs of integration are borne only once while the benefits live on.”

It all comes down to volume and it’s a pretty simple calculation. A couple of orders a week or even per day might not present a significant manual effort. Manual practices can be put into place to avoid errors and the labor expended is minimal. When the volume of orders increase the burden and costs of the manual process also increases, sometimes quite suddenly.

A good rule of thumb when manually integrating is to review the costs in dollars and time spent every couple of months to see if it passes the threshold that makes integration viable.

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