Free up your order processing schedule with EDI automation

by | Sep 26, 2019 | Automation, Retailers

With the summer behind us, autumn has officially begun, and with this change in season, the busy holiday season is now underway as is a return to standard daylight time.

Retailers nation-wide are rejoicing at the ability to use that ‘extra hour’ to manage their retail order processing, and who can blame them. It’s the busiest season of the year for retailers.

Your time is valuable so let’s take a look at your to-do list and start crossing items off of it, forever, and save it for activities that matter.

For most retail professionals, entering and checking orders, product details, and invoices into various systems are likely among those daily tasks you’d like to eliminate. There’s no question that they’re essential tasks, but they aren’t what most of us enjoy.

Automation lets you put hours back into your workweek

The good news is that you can save time by using automation to automate these manual tasks with EDI. You’ll put hours back into your week and keep order and supply chain processes moving.

Retailers love the time savings, but they also boast about how automation with EDI allows them to focus on strengthening their brand, collaborating with vendors, building out assortments and deploying other initiatives like drop shipping.

Five reasons retailers choose to make their lives easier by automating their order processes with EDI

  1.  If it’s manual, it’s error-prone. No one is perfect, even the most proficient order entry professionals. Orders need to be correct, or you could end up with the wrong inventory or delivery dates. Automation removes 99 percent of human errors and keeps your data clean. You save time usually spent on data entry and chasing after mistakes.
  2. Timeliness matters to the consumer. Especially for eCommerce and drop-ship retailers, every minute counts if you are going to offer same day or next day delivery. EDI automation means that every customer order is received and immediately routed to your warehouse, 3PL, or supplier to fulfill. No delays from paperwork waiting on someone’s desk or when you step away for lunch.
  3. Peak seasons are less stressful. If you have a seasonal business, you may hire temporary workers to manage the additional paperwork, or you may plan to work late and on weekends. Automated EDI scales to manage the peaks and valleys of your business cycle, managing ten orders or 10,000 without missing a step. Even in the busiest of times, EDI automation does the work for you and alerts you to shipments or invoices that don’t align with your order. You save time spent hiring and training seasonal staff and only review just a handful of unreconciled documents, not thousands.
  4.  Your systems should talk to one another. Your business has accounting, ERP, WMS, IMS, OMS, or other systems that do additional functions like invoicing, inventory management, or sales tracking on your behalf. When your order process integrates with these systems through EDI, they are able to work together and share information. You’ll avoid double entry, errors and maximize the value of the tools you already own.
  5. Workdays would be better without it. There is no shame in disliking data entry. If your day is filled with order management tasks that could be automated, it’s time to take action. Contact SPS Commerce today for a short demo to show you why EDI automation is a better way. We’ve helped retailers of all sizes gain new efficiencies and scale operations to fit their growth. Let us help you make better use of your days.

 

Mastering the Retail Game

Mastering the Retail Game

Explore the new rules of retail and get real-world advice on how to win by learning from retail experts and peers in the industry.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
SPS Commerce Blog Team
Latest posts by SPS Commerce Blog Team (see all)
Free up your order processing schedule with EDI automation

GET MONTHLY UPDATES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.

Never miss an update from the SPS blog! Receive retail and supply chain news, valuable resources, expert tips and more.

RELATED POSTS