EDI is the computer to computer exchange of business documents
in a standardized format. These standards detail the format of over
200 business transactions that companies exchange on a daily basis.
The standards spell out not only the format of the records that
make up the business document, but also specify the communications
methods for transferring the documents and the sequence of events
in the exchange. Copies of the standards can be obtained directly
from the Standards organizations.
EDI Communications
Safeway operates as their own VAN in much the same way as many of
the public VANs. Safeway does not employ a VAN for store and forward
of our EDI data. We do communicate with most of the major
VANs that our trading partners have employed. When our trading
partners send data to their VAN for Safeway, the VAN will "dial
and drop" the data to Safeway’s direct dial port. Likewise;
when Safeway has data for a trading partner and that trading partner
has designated a VAN to use for their communications, Safeway will
"dial and drop" the data to the designated VAN. Since
Safeway does not employ a VAN, some VANs will charge the trading
partner a premium for handling the Safeway data.
As an alternative to this premium, Safeway does offer direct dial
communications to all of our trading partners, thus saving them
the total cost of using a VAN to communicate with us. For details
on how to dial direct with Safeway, see our "Direct
Dial to Safeway" document.
How to get started with EDI to Safeway
If you already have EDI capability, then you only need to establish
a "trading partnership" with Safeway and start testing.
If you do not have EDI capability in you present systems, you may
wish to contact one of several companies
that currently help trading partners to connect with Safeway via
EDI . These companies offer a variety of software and service solutions
that are in use by current trading partners of Safeway.
We suggest hat the first thing that you do is to download the appropriate
Implementation Guide for the transactions
that you will be communicating with Safeway. Within that guide you
will find a Trading Partner Information Page which you should fill
out completely and either email to ecredi@safeway.com
or FAX back to Safeway’s EDS department at (925)469-7061.
When the EDS analyst receives the completed Trading Partner Information
Page, they will contact you and provide you with list of item codes
that are currently on file with Safeway for your company. Upon receiving
the list of item UPCs you should verify that the list is accurate
and complete and have Safeway buyers correct any errors before we
start exchanging purchase orders and invoices that are based on
these codes.
Receiving Purchase Orders
Once you have set Safeway up as a trading partner in your system
and Safeway has done the same for your company, you can request
a test purchase order be sent to establish that the communication
path is functioning. Rather than sending a test purchase order,
we can turn on the indicators to set you in parallel to receive
the purchase orders in both EDI and FAX or EDI and print. If you
employ a broker, Safeway will send EDI purchase orders directly
to our suppliers only. It is the responsibility of the supplier
to provide a copy of Safeway’s purchase order to your broker
or other sales offices. Inquire with your VAN to see if they provide
carbon copy services. . Safeway requires functional acknowledgements
be sent back for every transaction that we send to you. The terms
and conditions that apply to EDI purchase orders are the same as
those that apply to all hardcopy purchase orders and are spelled
out in Safeway form
1060 that replaces Form
662.
Sending Invoices
Once you have set Safeway up as a trading partner in your system
and Safeway has done the same for your company, you can begin sending
in test invoices. These invoices should be based on live purchase
orders that Safeway has sent to you in the past. The reason that
we ask for invoices against live purchase orders is so that we can
look for key elements that need to match purchase order values.
These test invoices will be reviewed by the EDI analyst for completeness
and accuracy and feedback will be provided. Once you have sent in
a good invoice for each of the Safeway distribution centers that
you ship to, the EDI analyst will pass you to Accounts Payable in
a parallel mode. At this stage you will be sending all of your live
invoices both, EDI and hardcopy. After AP has compared the hardcopy
with the EDI invoices for a period of time, they will notify you
to stop sending the hard copy and they will then only pay off EDI
invoices. The trading partner must accept and acknowledge
the 824 application advice transactions in order that they be moved
to production.
Application Advice
When live invoices are sent in to Safeway and they contain data
content errors, an Application Advice transaction (824) is sent
back to the trading partner. This application advice contains an
error message that describes the data error that occurred. Safeway
expects a functional acknowledgement for each application advice
that is sent. The trading partner should also correct the data error
and re-send the corrected invoice.
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