EDI integration for small manufacturers.

EDI usually arrives because a large customer requires it. You land the account, they send their trading partner requirements, and suddenly purchase orders show up as EDI documents that somebody prints or copies and types into QuickBooks or the ERP by hand. Norsoft connects EDI to the systems a small manufacturer already runs, so orders, ship notices, and invoices flow without retyping, from Mankato, Minnesota.

Where the cost hides

Retyping EDI orders is slow, but the real cost is in the mistakes. A wrong quantity, a missed ship date, or an advance ship notice that does not match what was actually shipped can bring chargebacks from customers that enforce their EDI rules strictly. Those penalties are easy to miss in the moment and add up across a year.

The other hidden cost is ceiling. A business retyping EDI by hand can only take on as much EDI volume as its office can type, which quietly caps how many large accounts it can serve.

Buy first, if it fits

There are EDI service providers and EDI software built for small businesses, and if your volume is low and your trading partners are standard, one of them may be all you need. The gap is usually the last step: getting the data out of the EDI system and into QuickBooks or your ERP, and getting shipping and invoice data back out, without someone in the middle doing it by hand. That handoff is the part we build.

What we build

The connection between your EDI documents and the rest of your operation. Incoming purchase orders land in your ERP or accounting system as real orders. Ship notices and invoices are generated from what actually shipped and was billed, so they match. Exceptions, such as a price that does not match the contract or an item that is not in stock, are flagged for a person instead of slipping through.

It works with the systems you have. You own the code, so adding the next trading partner does not mean starting over.

Related work

EDI is one version of a problem we solve constantly, which is the same data being typed into more than one system. We wrote about the general case on our ERP integration page, including a company whose divisions each kept their own version of the same customer until we unified them behind one record.

How we start

We look at your trading partner requirements, a sample of the actual documents you receive and send, and the steps someone takes today to get each one into your systems. That shows exactly where the retyping and the risk are, and whether an off-the-shelf EDI provider plus a connection is enough or whether more is needed.

This is probably you if

• A customer requires EDI and orders are retyped into QuickBooks or the ERP
• You have been hit with chargebacks for ship notice or invoice errors
• Your EDI provider handles the documents but not the handoff to your systems
• Adding another EDI customer feels like adding another person

More on the other problems we solve for plants is on our manufacturing page.