Businesses using external warehouses, 3PL providers, and drop shipping suppliers often spend significant time managing documents manually. From retyping shipping updates to maintaining inventory spreadsheets, these tasks can quickly become time-consuming as operations grow.
EDI helps automate document exchange between ERP systems, warehouses, suppliers, customers, and logistics partners, reducing manual administration and improving visibility across the supply chain.
Why Do Warehouse Processes Become Manual?
Many businesses start with a warehouse located close to the office, making communication and inventory management relatively straightforward.
As businesses grow, they often introduce external warehouses, 3PL providers, or drop shipping suppliers. While these changes improve scalability, they can also create disconnected processes that rely on emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, and manual data entry.
1. Retyping Shipping Advice into Your ERP
When a warehouse sends shipping information manually, employees often need to re-enter the data into their ERP system. EDI automates this using the 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice transaction which confirms goods have been picked and shipped from the warehouse.
This creates additional work and increases the risk of errors. Automated document exchange allows shipping advice documents to update business systems automatically.
2. Retyping Transfer Receipts
Transfer receipts confirm that goods have been received into an external warehouse.
Without integration, warehouse teams may send these updates separately, requiring someone to manually enter the information into the ERP system. The EDI 944 Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt is the standard document for automating this confirmation. EDI helps automate this process and keeps inventory records up to date.
3. Sending PDFs Back and Forth with Warehouses
Many businesses still exchange warehouse documents through PDFs and email attachments.
For example, a company may create a PDF for the warehouse and then receive another PDF back with updates. While this works, it creates additional administration and limits visibility into warehouse operations.
4. Manually Checking Shipping Orders and Transfer Advice
Before sending fulfilment instructions or warehouse notifications, employees often review documents manually to ensure the information is correct. Warehouses typically receive these as EDI 940 Warehouse Shipping Orders, which can flow directly from an ERP without manual review.
As order volumes increase, these checks can become a significant administrative burden. Automated document exchange helps ensure information flows directly between systems.
5. Managing Inventory Spreadsheets Across Multiple Warehouses
Inventory visibility is one of the biggest challenges when using external warehouses.
Many businesses rely on spreadsheets to track stock levels across different warehouse locations. Maintaining these spreadsheets manually takes time and often results in outdated information, particularly when a warehouse updates a pick after the spreadsheet was last synced. EDI inventory management enables automatic stock updates between warehouses and ERP systems, removing the lag.
Automated inventory updates can help businesses maintain more accurate warehouse-level visibility.
6. Updating Sales and Stock Reports Manually
Some businesses receive weekly sales reports and stock updates from partners and warehouses.
These reports are often manually entered into spreadsheets before being shared internally. As the number of products, locations, and partners increases, maintaining accurate reporting becomes increasingly difficult.
7. Managing Communication with Offsite Warehouses
When a warehouse is no longer located near the business, communication often becomes more complicated.
Information that was once shared in person may now be exchanged through emails, spreadsheets, and manual updates. This can create delays and reduce visibility into warehouse operations.
How Does EDI Help Remove These Manual Tasks?
EDI automates document exchange between your ERP system, warehouses, suppliers, customers, and logistics partners.
Instead of manually sharing information, documents can move automatically between systems, helping businesses:
- Reduce manual data entry
- Eliminate repetitive administrative tasks
- Improve inventory visibility
- Reduce document errors
- Speed up warehouse communication
- Support growth across multiple warehouse locations
- Automate warehouse EDI transactions including 940, 944, and 945 documents
- Maintain a digital audit trail across all warehouse document exchanges
Many businesses already understand these warehouse processes. The challenge is often that they are still managing them manually. EDI helps automate the exchange of information while keeping systems connected.
Key Takeaways
- Many warehouse processes are still managed manually through PDFs, emails, and spreadsheets.
- Retyping warehouse documents can create delays and increase the risk of errors.
- Inventory visibility often becomes more difficult when using external warehouses.
- EDI automates document exchange between systems and trading partners.
- Businesses can spend less time on administration and more time on serving customers.