X12 Best Practices for POS Providers

North American suppliers support X12, but US and Canada suppliers are generally on different versions. Depending on which suppliers your retailers wish to order from, you would need to support one or both standards. An exception to the rule is that Random House US is only supporting ASNs on the 4010 standard.

• US EDI Standards (3060).
• Canadian EDI Standards (4010).

The most important difference between v3060 and v4010 is the date format. In 3060, the date is almost always a 6 character date field (YYMMDD) and if the century is is included anywhere it has its own separate field. IN 4010, they extended it to be an 8 character date in most places (NOT in the ISA!), so the date format comes out to be CCYYMMDD.

The other differences tend to be in the codelists.

Our Supplier Lists include most, but not every Pubnet supplier. Those listed are generally amenable to allowing any qualifying retailer to trade over Pubnet. Unlisted suppliers may allow a Pubnet connection only for specific retailers because they are paying a third-party for EDI and it's not cost-effective for them to open the channel to smaller retailers. A basic tenet of Pubnet is that each supplier has to approve Pubnet as an ordering channel for each individual retailer.

We update our supplier lists as contracts are signed/expire, distribution contracts change, or due to merger and acquisition activity.

The presence of a supplier on the list indicates that they CAN support X12 through Pubnet, but not that they WILL specifically allow it for a particular retailer. Suppliers generally require that the retailer's account be in good standing and established on credit terms (PRH and Hachette are exceptions). Additionally not every supplier supports all X12 docs for every retailer.

An important part of the Pubnet retailer setup process is for retailers to email their suppliers prior to placing their first Pubnet orders to make sure they are approved. Thus, prior to placing their first Pubnet order with a new supplier, the retailer needs to request approval and configuration from the supplier by providing their SAN, their ship-to account number, and whether they desire additional response documents beyond POAs. Otherwise, orders placed will usually not receive a POA and will not be fulfilled. The first POA from a supplier may take longer to receive than subsequent ones due to the required configuration steps. Contacts and a template email are here.

Determining the direct distributor of a particular title or imprint may be beyond the capabilities of the POS and require the buyer's expertise. Distribution also changes frequently due to contract expirations and industry mergers and acquisitions. If not managed by the POS, retailers will need the ability to manually set a distributor for a title, make bulk distribution edits, and view a history of vendors a title has been ordered from to help them choose the correct vendor for their current order.

• While it's not technically prohibited in the spec, we do not recommend including the same product on multiple line items because it's not always predictable how the vendors will react. Some may cancel the line items, but it's possible that they would fulfill one, the other, both, or it could cause the entire PO to be rejected.
• Allow retailers a field to enter a promotional code for extra discount. These codes are supplied by sales reps and Pubnet passes them along but does not do any validation on them. It is up to the retailer to enter the code correctly and meet all of its requirements. The retailer should be able to tell by the cost information in the POA whether the additional discount was applied correctly or not.
• Allow retailers the option to backorder an ISBN or not. There is a header-level setting in the CSH (Conditions of Sale) segment. The allowed options defined in the spec for this are the following, but a POS does not have to support all the options:
  
  For each line item, there is an optional segment called the IT8 (Conditions of Sale, line item level), where the same options exist. Note: If providing retailers with a binary option to backorder or not, the we recommend sending code O.
  
  What we see most commonly is that POS software systems don't use the IT8, only the CSH. In cases where both are used, they generally contain the same value. BUT: If there are differing values in the CSH and IT8 code, the IT8 code should override for that line item.
  
  In rare cases, the retailer may have disallowed backorders on their account at the supplier and that setting would in turn override the IT8. The max amount of time an item will backorder before canceling is usually determined by the retailer's account settings with the supplier, but it is possible to optionally provide a shorter cancellation window.

• All suppliers should return POAs/855s. Other response documents are optional. If the vendor is able to send them, they are usually only provided on request (ask in configuration request) and not automatically for every retailer.
• Do not assume that supplier will or can send EDI response documents for purchase orders placed via a different channel.

• POAs often have line items in the same order as the original 850/PO, but this is not required by spec. A best practice is to use the ISBN to ingest POAs and not the Assigned Identification/PO101 field, since the spec states this field is only used within a transaction set, not across them.
• POAs are usually returned by the supplier within 1-2 business days. Each supplier has their own schedule and schedules can change.

• Not every supplier supports ASNs.
• Even if supplier supports ASNs, they may not agree to send to every retailer (retailer should request during configuration).
• Penguin Random House has currently implemented ASNs in only version 4010 of X12.

• Not every supplier supports Invoices.
• Even if supplier supports Invoices, they may not agree to send to every retailer (retailer should request during configuration).