Avoiding Chargebacks

The EDI Advance Ship Notice aka “ASN” has long been regarded as the most complex and technically challenging transaction to implement.  Many considerations must be accounted for due to the many layers of complexity.  However, using best practices and knowing the proper questions to be asked before implementing this transaction will save you time and money.

What is the EDI Advance Ship Notice ‘ASN’, also referred by its numerical name of the EDI 856:

The EDI advance ship notice is an electronic document exchanged between trading partners.  The 856 is a critical document for the supply chain this documents tells your trading partner of pending shipments.  The information contained in this document is but not limited to the following fields:

• Bill of Lading Number
• Total Weight of Shipment
• Ship Date
• Total Weight of each Individual Purchase Order Number Shipped
• Vendor Number, Department Number
• Carrier Name, Scac Code(Standard Carrier Alpha Code)
• Purchase Order Number(This segment can repeat and/or have multiple unique numbers in   document)
• UCC-128 and/or GS1-128 Number
• Items and Quantity Shipped in each Carton or Pallet

Why Are Charge backs so common for this transaction Set:

On the surface the above information does not seem so difficult to manage or obtain, so why is this transaction so common to receive charge backs?

The customer can expect the document in many different formats depending on what is shipped and how shipment is packed.  For Example, a common format for the ASN would be designated in the following manner, first level is the SHIP LEVEL “S”, the second level is the ORDER LEVEL “O”, the third level is the TARE LEVEL “T”, the fourth level is the PACK LEVEL “P” and the final level is the ITEM LEVEL “I”.  It is very common for all the levels excluding the SHIP LEVEL to repeat.

Common Formats based on above codes can be but are not limited to:

• SOPI
• SOPII
• SOIP
• SOTPI

Some other considerations to review on the EDI specification is the following:

• Can ASN have multiple ship to locations.
• Did trading partner try to cancel order after order had shipped?
• How will trading partner inform you of non-compliant ASN’s?
• Order was shipped outside of specific shipping window provided on EDI purchase order
• Does customer want you to consolidate shipment on one ASN, very common for many boxes being shipped federal express to be included on one ASN.
• Will your vendors be responsible for ASN’s if they are shipping your product direct to your       customers?
• What data from the inbound EDI purchase order is required on the ASN?
• The ASN must be received before shipment arrives, it is imperative to know if you are shipping product within close proximity to make the necessary requirements to ensure 856 arrives before  shipment.
• When packing items it is important for the shippers to know if they can put more than one item in a carton or on a pallet, must have vendor manuals for all EDI Trading Partners to obtain some of this information.
• Are you responsible for any ‘VAS’, or value added services?

What Data Fields Cause the Majority of the ASN Charge Backs:

• UCC-128 or GS1-128 labels on ASN do not match what was shipped
• Vendor Number or Department not present from original customer EDI purchase order
• Customer SKU not present on ASN
• QTY field for Over Shipped product
• Weight field-value incorrect
• SCAC code invalid
• Product shipped to wrong location
• Labels were not able to be scanned

What are Some Best Practices to Implement for the EDI ‘ASN’ Advance Ship Notice:

• Many of the above issues can be reduced or completely eliminated by putting controls in place
• Focused E-Commerce standardizes all data before creating the ASN thus eliminating mapping issues
• Once data is standardized Focused E-Commerce is able to run edit checks based on customer specific vendor manual to ensure data integrity and EDI ASN compliance.
• It is critical for the EDI team to work hand in hand with the shippers to ensure that the internal business processes are understood by everyone on the team responsible for handling the shipping documents.