EDI Fundamentals
The building blocks of Electronic Data Interchange: what EDI is, why businesses use it, and how documents move between trading partners.
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New guides for this category are in progress. In the meantime, explore related transactions and tools below, or browse the full article library.
Related transactions
Purchase Order
The X12 850 is the electronic purchase order a buyer sends to a supplier to request goods or services, replacing paper or PDF POs with a structured, machine-readable document.
Functional Acknowledgment
The X12 997 confirms that an interchange was received and whether it passed structural (syntax) validation — it does not confirm business acceptance of the content.
Related tools
IBM Sterling B2B Integrator
IBM
An on-premises and cloud-capable B2B integration platform used for EDI translation, trading partner management, and secure file transfer at enterprise scale.
Cleo Integration Cloud
Cleo
A cloud-based B2B integration platform providing EDI translation, partner onboarding, and API-based integration with visibility into transaction flows.