Suppliers who rely on QuickBooks for order fulfillment may be familiar with the agony of copying and pasting 
order information, or rekeying data. If this sounds all too familiar and you are looking for a more efficient way to use QuickBooks, EDI is your answer. Automating QuickBooks with EDI enables you to save time, work faster, save money, scale without increasing headcount and work with big box retailers.
By integrating your QuickBooks platform with EDI you will save time. If a member of your sales team has been manually fulfilling orders, that is an hour each day that they are not selling. In a year, that will equate to a month of lost sales. Electing to implement and EDI provider an integration hub will free up your team so they can focus on their true tasks and your business will run more efficiently. Your EDI provider will translate documents and ensure they flow into the correct system (eliminating the need for data entry).
Beyond its time saving capabilities, EDI delivers incredible speed. A survey conducted by Forrester Research found that EDI can speed up your business cycles by 61%. This enables you to exchange transactions in minutes rather than days or weeks as seen by utilizing the postal service. Another benefit of EDI automation is that you can process more orders in less time. A direct integration with your EDI retail trading partners to QuickBooks enables you to receive and process orders at a much faster pace. EDI documents send much quicker than faxes, and are more efficient than emails or phone calls. With a faster order cycle, your business will gain the benefit of scalability and handle a higher order volume. Because orders are processed in real-time without manual processes, an EDI solution enables you to get paid faster by speeding up the order lifecycle. It also can increase customer satisfaction because they can quickly track and receive their orders.
An EDI integration with QuickBooks also saves you money. When you elect to use EDI, expenses associated with paper, printing, reproduction, storage, filing, postage and document retrieval are all reduced or eliminated lowering your transaction costs by at least 35%. Forester research reports that a major electronics manufacturer calculated the cost of processing an order manually at $38 compared to just $1.35 for an order processed using EDI. EDI also enables your company to go green and reduce your corporate carbon footprint.
The efficiency associated with EDI allows you to scale your business while maintaining the same headcount. Utilizing a third-party provider can be 30% less of a cost than utilizing an in-house service. Most providers will handle EDI testing, mapping, and support. Through automation, the need for manual data entry is eliminated freeing up your employees so they can focus on other aspects of your business.
In addition to automation benefits, suppliers can enhance the business by working with big box retailers. Because of the efficiency of EDI, most big box retailers mandate that their suppliers are EDI compliant. By adding EDI to your QuickBooks, you can do business with a larger network of retailers while enjoying EDI automation. All purchase orders would flow from your big box retailer directly into QuickBooks. Upon reviewing the PO, a purchase order acknowledgement would be sent to the retailer followed by an advance shipment notice and an invoice. All documents flow to and from QuickBooks without any manual data entry. To learn more about automating your QuickBooks platform with EDI, watch our webinar here.
