Invoicing with Edisoft Merchant Express

While Edisoft does a fantastic job integrating with Mas500, AccPac, Great Plains, and Mas90/200, I've worked with companies that are not integrated.
For many retailers, orders received are single store-defined-quantity orders--that is they have one Purchase Order number and each item line has several sublines with their stores(Mark For). Often these store numbers are already set up in Merchant's customer location setup with the macthing ship point(retailer Distribution Center)--for example store 0888 is matched to DC 0737, so we might have one order, 250 ultimate stores(Mark For) divided into 2 DC shipments.
Some retailers require we return via EDI one consolidated invoice per PO, others require one per ship point(4 DC's, 4 consolidated invoices). Most however, require one invoice returned per store(markfor).

With non-integrated accounting companies, we put the SDQ orders into our ERP systems as a single order as the store information not needed for accounting purposes. When we invoice in the ERP, we assign a 6 digit number.
Then to EDI the order, if they want one per store, we go into System Control numbers and select the starting invoice number. We put in first 6 digits from our ERP invoice, then put 0001.
Now back to Sales Orders and find the order in question. Tap the invoice button and do the drop down "one per PK" and choose how you would like to date---either date of invoice or ship date(which if ASN'd, should be ship date from your ASN). Select the Auto Invoice and suddenly all the stores will be invoiced(with 200 stores, xxxxxx0001-xxxxxx0200).
Wait, two more steps---
1. Go into Reports and select invoice summary---choose the invoice range, and wait for report to pop up on screen--go to last page and verify that your sum of the range matches the amount in your ERP. Take necessary steps to correct if it does not.
2. Go into the invoice screen for that customer and select all the invoices and if already mapped, just hit "create 810", and within seconds you have created the invoices for all those orders.

Your AR team now has a range for that PO and makes it easier for them to match up when the retailer's check is received.

Macy's name update

From June 2nd posting by Macy's:
"...as one national Macy's store organization, we are no longer using Macy's East, Macy's West, Macy's Central, Macy's Florida or Macy's Home Store as divisional purchasing entities. Rather, Macy's Merchandising Corporation (MMC), will be the single purchaser in place of those divisional entities. MMC will be using the former Macy's EAST EDI communication Ids and all labels and invoices should reflect our new MMC purchaser name (i.e., MMC or Macy's) in place of the old divisional entities."

This Edisoft template 583(Macy'sEast) for the 4030 version. In Profile, you can change the name. Also, doublecheck the DC and direct to store locations under "Macy's East", to verify that the description and Name 1/2 Fields do not reference Macy's East, but instead the new name. If labels not adjusted by this change, please contact edisoft support to adjust your label template.
As for invoices, I don't believe the name is mapped at any point UNLESS your mapping has it assigned in the N1 BT/ST segments.
Here is an example of how I have set up on the invoice and as you see, no mention of the division name.

N1*BY**92*7368

N1*ST**92*BA

So now that they have one Macy's division(Macy's.com is separate from stores), hopefully they will look at reducing number of direct to store(D2S) ship points.

846 Inventory Outbound document

More and more retailers are demanding to know your inventory, especially the dot-com companies.
First off, it is usually pretty rare to tell the exact quantity you have in your warehouse. Reasons for doing this vary--for example, an item may be on replenishment for a few different customers, or you may just leave option open for a large quantiy closeout buy.
Many companies like Macy's.com allow you to simply use 1 for instock or 0 for out of stock. You can also put a set "available" quantity that is really an amount substantially lower than what you have available but higher than you expect daily demand to be.
In Edisoft Merchant Express, you use the "user defined Field 1" in Customer Items to set the amount. Then with the outbound 846 document, select the items to include, set the date, and send.
One more trick is for the certain customers I will build the file on Monday, then create 4 additional 846, and just change the file dates.
These appear in the Outbox---I place hold on Tuesday-Friday's, and send Monday's. Then each morning I clear the hold off that morning's 846 and send with the 997's.

More at http://support.edisoft.com

Macy's ASN Formula for D2S codes

As you probably know by now, Macys has consolidated their EDI under one mapping--the old Macy's East id, which is Edisoft template 583 for the 4030 version.
Macys has at least 17 DC's depending on your setup, each as a 2 letter code---stores are matched to the appropriate 2 letter ship to code in the location setup.
However, there are now 10 direct to store locations. The direct to store locations come in with a 4 digit code, and for the turnaround ASN, Macy's requires you to put "D2S" in the N1 ST field of the 856, even though ship to is actually the 4 digit store code. Obviously matching all the stores to a D2S ship to code doesn't help as you need to differentiate on the labels and in Visual for the shipments.
Paul LeBlanc, the Edisoft formula guru, has posted an excellent guide to formula writing on the http://support.edisoft.com website. I recommend you download it today--tis a must for any serious Edisoft user.
Using that and a little help from Paul himself, what you need to do is:
1. in the mapping screen of Edisoft, where N1 ST code is mapped, paste the following formula. Press enter twice (ignore 17 digit limitation message) and save. Close out and go back in--formula works beautifully!
=IIF(CurDoHead.DCNO=CurDoHead.Shipto,"D2S",CurDoHead.DCNO)

Basically it is checking if the ShipTo code matches the MarkFor code--if so, it puts "D2S", else it puts the original Ship to 2-letter DC code.
Please let me know if you find this helpful.

Welcome

This blog is about using Edisoft Merchant EDI software, EDI and retail/CSG in general.
I am not an Edisoft employee--merely a customer for 8 years and a fan of their software. I use the software on a daily basis to communicate with many major retailers.
Every day is a new challenge in the world of B2B, and I will share the ways my team meets those challenges. Hopefully others along the way will join in with their own tips.
More on Edisoft at www.Edisoft.com and their excellent support site is http://support.edisoft.com/