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EDI integration for small and mid-sized businesses

Orders in, invoices out, nothing re-keyed.

A big customer or retailer wants to trade by EDI (electronic data interchange) and your system doesn't speak it. We build the link between their system and yours, so their orders arrive as your sales orders and your invoices go back in the format they insist on.

A manager pointing something out to a colleague in a warehouse
The problem

The customer sets the rules. You do the typing.

Large customers send purchase orders electronically and expect confirmations and invoices back the same way, with their reference values carried through exactly. If your system can't do that, somebody re-keys every order and builds every invoice by hand. It's slow, and one wrong value means a rejected invoice and a late payment.

An EDI service will pass the messages along, but the data still has to get into and out of your own system. That last step is the part we build.

What you get

  • Incoming orders created as sales orders in your system, ready to pick
  • Order confirmations and invoices sent back in the customer's format
  • Their depots, part numbers and references matched to your accounts and products
  • A short list of the few lines that need a person, with plain-English guidance for staff
  • Checks that stop anything being sent twice
How it works

How an EDI link gets built.

  1. Read their spec

    We work from the customer's own message guide and test files, and agree with their EDI team what they'll send and what they expect back.

  2. Map it to your system

    Their codes are matched to your customers, delivery addresses and products. Where they don't match, the order is held for a person instead of guessed.

  3. Test with real messages

    We exchange test orders and invoices with the customer until both sides pass, before anything live moves.

  4. Go live and stay on it

    The link runs on a schedule and reports what it did. We look after it when the customer changes their format.

From our work

Two jobs like this one.

WholesaleEDI integration

EDI with a major customer: orders in, invoices out, nothing re-keyed.

The problem

A major European customer sends its purchase orders by EDI (electronic data interchange) and rejects any invoice that doesn't carry back the exact reference values from its order. Re-keying was slow, and one wrong value meant a rejected invoice.

What we did

We built an EDI link that collects the orders, creates the sales order, confirms it back, and sends the electronic invoice when the goods leave. Depots in several countries are matched to the right customer accounts, and staff have a plain-English guide for the few lines that still need a person.

The result

Orders from that customer arrive as sales orders ready to pick, and the invoices go back in the format the customer requires.

ManufacturingRetail invoicing

Electronic invoicing to a national retailer.

The problem

A manufacturer raised its invoices to one large retailer by hand. The retailer wanted them as files in its own format.

What we did

As a small fixed-price job, we added a nightly run that sends the day's invoices in the retailer's format, with a start date so nothing already invoiced by hand could go twice.

The result

Quoted, tested with the retailer and sending live invoices inside five weeks. It sits alongside the full EDI order and invoice exchange we've built elsewhere: whichever system a customer or retailer uses, we can make yours talk to it.

All case studies →

Questions

What people ask first.

Based in Derbyshire, working with businesses across Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, the wider East Midlands and the UK.

Which EDI formats do you work with?

The format is set by your customer, so we work to their specification. That has included EDIFACT order, order response and invoice messages, and retailers' own file formats. If they can give us a message guide and test files, we can build to it.

Does it work with our stock or accounts system?

Almost always. If your system has an API we use it. Where it doesn't, we've connected through direct database access, files and other routes. If we can't reach it, we'll say so before you spend anything.

What happens to an order that doesn't match?

It's held and flagged for a person, with the reason shown. Nothing is guessed, and nothing incorrect is sent back to the customer.

How long does it take?

The build is usually the quick part. The calendar is mostly set by how fast the customer's EDI team can test with us.

Related work

Sage, Xero and QuickBooks integration →Old VB.NET and Access systems →Vibe-coded app to production →E-commerce websites →Web applications and portals →Desktop applications →Mobile apps for Android and iOS →Supplier and customer integration →

Got a customer asking for EDI?

Tell us the problem. We'll tell you what's possible, how long it takes and what it costs.

Start a conversation → See case studies