EDI is a set of standards for structuring information to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses, organizations, government entities and other groups. The standards describe structures that emulate documents, for example purchase orders to automate purchasing. The term EDI is also used to refer to the implementation and operation of systems and processes for creating, transmitting, and receiving EDI documents.

EDI is considered to be a technical representation of a business conversation between two entities, either internal or external. EDI documents generally contain the same information that would normally be found in a paper document used for the same organizational function. For example an EDI 204 load tender is used by a shipper to tell a carrier to ship a load to a destination. It typically has a ship to address, ship datetime, descriptions of the commodity and quantities. It may have other information if the parties agree to include it. For more info on EDI, contact us.