EDI Solutions

The Halden Group: Your EDI experts.

The Halden Group offers multiple EDI solutions - both stand alone and those that integrate with your accounting packages.

What is EDI?

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a set of standards for structuring information to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses, organizations, government entities and other groups. The standards describe structures that emulate documents, for example purchase orders to automate purchasing. Although by pure definition EDI is a standard, there are myriad variations and versions of EDI standards in use today. The term EDI is also used to refer to the implementation and operation of systems and processes for creating, transmitting, and receiving EDI documents.

The History of EDI

EDI has been under development in the U.S. in one form or another since the mid-1960s. See History of EDI.

EDI ROI:

Eliminate the Paper
Companies that are EDI enabled can send and receive business documents electronically with their trading partners. Simply put, EDI enables the computer system of one company to “talk” to the other company; digitally exchanging data, eliminating the need for a paper-based system.
Reduce Penalties
Virtually eliminate penalties incurred do to non-compliance.
Automate Business Processes
Because this digital exchange of data is facilitated using computers most of the associated business processes (such as data population and verification) can be automated so that they occur with little or no manual intervention.
Eliminate Data Entry Errors
A key benefit of EDI includes the reduction or elimination of data entry errors resulting in transaction processing that is more expeditious and streamlined.
Improve Cash Flow
Receive payments for invoices sent via EDI as much as 30 days sooner than those sent via fax, because EDI transactions are processed by their customers more quickly and efficiently.

Key Components of EDI

Connectivity with a trading partner(s) provides a means of transmitting EDI transactions, whether directly via the internet or through a proprietary data network. Companies that provide network only services are typically called value added networks or VANs.
Translation software that is needed to translate the raw EDI data into a meaningful format, such as a human-readable version.
Data Mapping and Integration provides the ability to seamlessly import and export information from EDI-based transactions to and from your back-end business or accounting system, as well as properly format transactions being sent to your trading partners.
Interpreting EDI Data