May 24th, 2021

EDI has been around for decades and is still a cornerstone of many industries, including automotive.

As more and more automotive companies pursue a globalized supply chain and embrace just-in-time (JIT) and lean manufacturing processes, EDI becomes more important than ever to support seamless collaboration among all business partners involved in the supply chain.

Regardless of where you are in the supply chain—or around the globe—EDI provides a fast and easy way to exchange business documents electronically with customers and/or suppliers through a mutually agreed document standard.

EDI Document Standards

When it comes to the automotive industry, there are a few document standards in use today. However, when automotive suppliers first needed to define a standard “language,” or document format, to use in the industry, the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) elected to adopt the American National Standards Institute’s (ANSI) X12 format.

So, if you are exchanging EDI documents in North America, you have most likely heard of the ANSI X12 standard. That’s because the AIAG worked with its sister organizations to harmonize this standard globally within the industry. But in addition to the traditional ANSI X12 standard, several regional standards have been developed around the world, like ODETTE in Europe and VDA in Germany, for example.

Common EDI Document Codes Used in Automotive

While there are hundreds of document types that can be exchanged between businesses every day, it is important to get familiar with some automotive-industry-specific standards and EDI document codes.

We have already talked about standards, but what is an EDI code? As the term “EDI code” is often misunderstood, we think it’s important to provide some clarification here.

EDI document codes—also referred to as EDI transaction sets, EDI transaction codes, or, in general, EDI documents—are typically used to describe a specific document format within a certain standard, like ANSI X12. Basically, EDI codes define a set of rules on how data should be organized within the document in question. For example, ANSI X12 EDI transaction codes are identified by a numeric identifier. For instance, a purchase order is referred to as an EDI 850 in the X12 standard. In Europe, however, the EDI 850 equivalent is ORDERR. This is in accordance with the designated ODETTE EDI transaction codes.

For your convenience, we have compiled a list of common EDI codes for the global automotive industry across the ANSI X12, ODETTE, and VDA standards.

Common ANSI X12 EDI Transaction Codes in Automotive

Definitions are sourced directly from the official X12 dictionary.

EDI 810 - InvoiceThe EDI 810 Invoice Transaction Set can be used to provide for customary and established business and industry practice relative to the billing for goods and services provided.
EDI 820 - Payment Order Remittance AdviceThe EDI 820 Payment Order/Remittance Advice Transaction Set can be used to make a payment, send a remittance advice, or make a payment and send a remittance advice.

The EDI 820 transaction set can be an order to a financial institution to make a payment to a payee. It can also be a remittance advice identifying the detail needed to perform cash application to the payee's accounts receivable system. The remittance advice can go directly from payer to payee, through a financial institution, or through a third-party agent.
EDI 824 - Application AdviceThe EDI 824 Application Advice Transaction Set can be used to provide the ability to report the results of an application system's data content edits. The results of editing transaction sets can be reported at the functional group, an entire transaction set, or any portion of a transaction set, in either coded or free-form format. The EDI X12 824 transaction is designed to accommodate the business need of reporting the acceptance, rejection, acceptance with change, or partial acceptance or rejection of any transaction set. The EDI X12 824 Application Advice should not be used in place of a transaction set designed as a specific response to another transaction set (e.g., purchase order acknowledgment sent in response to a purchase order).
EDI 830 - Planning Schedule with Release CapabilityThe EDI 830 Planning Schedule with Release Capability Transaction Set can be used to provide for customary and established business practice relative to the transfer of forecasting/material release information between organizations.
The planning schedule ANSI X12 830 transaction may be used in various ways or in a combination of ways, such as: (1) a simple forecast; (2) a forecast with the buyer's authorization for the seller to commit to resources, such as labor or material; (3) a forecast that is also used as an order release mechanism, containing such elements as resource authorizations, period-to-date cumulative quantities, and specific ship/delivery patterns for requirements that have been represented in "buckets," such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly. The order release forecast in the ANSI X12 830 may also contain all data related to purchase orders, as required, because the order release capability eliminates the need for discrete generation of purchase orders.
EDI 850 - Purchase OrderThe EDI X12 850 Purchase Order Transaction Set can be used to provide for customary and established business and industry practice relative to the placement of purchase orders for goods and services. This transaction set should not be used to convey purchase order changes or purchase order acknowledgment information.
It is important to emphasize the point above. The EDI 850 Purchase Order (commonly referred to as EDI 850 PO, or simply PO) is meant for EDI orders only. In a traditional EDI 850 layout, each individual product is listed as a line item and the order total to be invoiced is calculated at the bottom. The layout also includes typical sender and receiver information, such as company name and contact information, for example.
Note: The EDI 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgment is used to inform the sender of PO receipt, as well as to convey alterations to the order.
EDI 852 - Product Activity DataThe EDI 852 Product Activity Data Transaction Set can be used to advise a trading partner of inventory, sales, and other product activity information. Product activity data enables a trading partner to plan and ship, or propose inventory replenishment quantities, for distribution centers, warehouses or retail outlets.
The receiver of the transaction set will maintain some type of inventory/product movement records for its trading partners to enable replenishment calculations based on data provided by the distributor, warehouse or retailer.
The data contained within the EDI 852 transaction set (commonly used to exchange pharmaceutical data) is often compared with that of an EDI 867 Product Transfer and Resale Report, which provides information on product movement between locations and how that relates back to the end customer. EDI 852 and 867 are often viewed together for a more detailed overview.
As previously noted, as far as EDI 852 vs. 846, EDI 852 is more focused on accurate inventory calculations, planning, and forecasting, while EDI 846 is an inquiry into the true inventory status.
EDI 855 - Purchase Order AcknowledgementThe EDI 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgment Transaction Set can be used to provide for customary and established business and industry practice relative to a seller's acknowledgment of a buyer's purchase order, hence the name Purchase Order Acknowledgment. The EDI 855 transaction set can also be used as notification of a vendor generated order. This usage advises a buyer that a vendor has or will ship merchandise as prearranged in their partnership.
Note: The EDI 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgment definition above does not clearly state that this transaction set also contains information on whether or not the order has been accepted, rejected, or accepted with changes. This information is presented as an EDI 855 rejection code in the EDI document.
EDI 856 - Advance Ship NoticeThe EDI 856 Ship Notice/Manifest Transaction Set can be used to list the contents of a shipment of goods as well as additional information relating to the shipment, such as order information, product description, physical characteristics, type of packaging, marking, carrier information, and configuration of goods within the transportation equipment. The transaction set enables the sender to describe the contents and configuration of a shipment in various levels of detail and provides an ordered flexibility to convey information.
The sender of this transaction is the organization responsible for detailing and communicating the contents of a shipment, or shipments, to one or more receivers of the transaction set. The receiver of this transaction set can be any organization having an interest in the contents of a shipment or information about the contents of a shipment.
EDI 860 - Purchase Order Change Request - Buyer InitiatedThe EDI 860 Purchase Order Change Request - Buyer Initiated Transaction Set can be used to provide the information required for the customary and established business and industry practice relative to a purchase order change. This transaction can be used: (1) by a buyer to request a change to a previously submitted purchase order or (2) by a buyer to confirm acceptance of a purchase order change initiated by the seller or by mutual agreement of the two parties.
EDI 861 - Receiving Advice/Acceptance CertificateThe EDI 861 Receiving Advice/Acceptance Certificate Transaction Set can be used to provide for customary and established business and industry practice relative to the notification of receipt or formal acceptance of goods and services.
But if you really want to understand what an EDI 861 is, we can better tell you that this message is sent from the receiver to the shipper to inform them that the order has arrived at its intended destination. The EDI 861 message also informs the shipper if the contents received differ from the contents listed on other documents in the same transaction, such as the EDI 850 Purchase Order.
EDI 862 - Shipping ScheduleThe EDI 862 Shipping Schedule Transaction Set can be used by a customer to convey precise shipping schedule requirements to a supplier, and is intended to supplement the planning schedule transaction set (830). The shipping schedule transaction set will supersede certain shipping and delivery information transmitted in a previous planning schedule transaction, but it does not replace the 830 transaction set. The shipping schedule transaction set shall not be used to authorize labor, materials or other resources. The use of this transaction set will facilitate the practice of Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing by providing the customer with a mechanism to issue precise shipping schedule requirements on a more frequent basis than with the issuance of a planning schedule transaction, e.g., daily shipping schedules versus weekly planning schedules. The shipping schedule transaction also provides the ability for a customer location to issue shipping requirements independent of other customer locations when planning schedule transactions are issued by a consolidated scheduling organization.
EDI 865 - Purchase Order Change Acknowledgment/Request - Seller InitiatedThe EDI 865 Purchase Order Change Acknowledgment/Request - Seller Initiated Transaction Set can be used by the seller to convey acceptance or rejection of changes to a previously submitted purchase order from the buyer. The transaction set is used by the seller to accept, reject, or modify a purchase order. Also, the transaction set can be seller-initiated to change a purchase order.
EDI 866 - Production Sequence The EDI 866 Production Sequence Transaction Set can be used to provide for the receiver of goods to request the order in which shipments of goods arrive at one or more locations, or to specify the order in which the goods are to be unloaded from the conveyance method, or both. This specifies the sequence in which the goods are to enter the materials handling process, or are to be consumed in the production process, or both. This transaction set shall not be used to authorize labor, materials, or other resources. This transaction set shall not be used to revise any product characteristic specification.
EDI 997 - Functional AcknowledgmentThe EDI 997 Functional Acknowledgment Transaction Set can be used to define the control structures for a set of acknowledgments to indicate the results of the syntactical analysis of the electronically encoded documents. The encoded documents are the transaction sets, which are grouped in functional groups, used in defining transactions for business data interchange. This standard does not cover the semantic meaning of the information encoded in the transaction sets.

Common ODETTE EDI Transaction Codes in Automotive

Visit the official ODETTE website here for more information.

DELINS - Delivery Forecast / Delivery
CALDEL - JIT Delivery
SYNCRO - Sequenced Delivery
AVIEXP - Dispatch Advice
INVOIC - Invoice
ORDERR - Purchase Order
ORDCHG - Order Change
REPORD - Order Response
REMADV - Remittance Advice
STATAC - Account Statement
EXHAND - For Delivery Schedule Exception Handling
KANBAN - KANBAN Delivery
FORDIS - ‘Ready for Dispatch’ Advice
STOACT - Inventory Report
TRINAD - Forwarding Instruction
CONSUM - Consignment Consolidation
PRILST - Price List Based

Common VDA EDI Transaction Codes in Automotive

Visit the official VDA website here.

4905 - Call off
4906 - Invoice
4907 - Remittance Advice
4913 - Delivery Note
4915 - Detailed Call Off (JIT)
4916 - Call Off Just-in-sequence
4925 - Purchase Order
4926 - Acknowledgement of Order
4970 - Delivery Forecast
4989 - Receiving Advice