When doing business with larger organizations you are almost always required to implement an EDI solution.  There are a host of factors that make it necessary to do EDI (electronic data interchange) with larger companies.  These factors included both strategic and operational reasons and have been around for decades.  Here are just a couple of examples of the strategic and operation benefits companies take advantage of:

Strategic:

     • Decreased operating costs;
     • Improved cash and inventory cycles;
     • Rapidly integrate trading partners into business processes.

Operational:

     • Invoices are sent out and in your partners hands in minutes;
     • Increased security in delivery of message and transaction processing;
     • Reduce double entry of data, eliminate data errors;
     • Reduction in inventory levels;
     • Reduced paper, postage and sorting activities.

By taking advantage of the strategic and operational benefits of implementing an EDI solution, customers and suppliers have been required to do business via EDI.  In almost all situations larger companies will not enter into a business relationship without the other party conforming to the EDI standards set by the larger company.  Depending on the number of transactions per month, the customer can choose to implement an EDI system which automatically handles incoming documents – i.e: 850’s (Purchase Orders) and 997’s (Functional Acknowledgement) or they can choose to enter information manually via a web form. 

At eBridge Software our solutions have functionality built-in to handle automatic and manual entry (rip and read) of data.  To read more about our software solutions and how your company may benefit – Click here. 

Regards,
Dave Malda

Many businesses over the last couple years have turned to software as a service (SaaS) applications for their business needs.  With the increase in network bandwidth and the advancements in Web 2.0 the SaaS model is being adopted by a growing number of organizations of all sizes. 

Today’s IT department has more choices than ever when it comes to deploying the software applications needed by the organization to run its business. While the traditional, on-premise approach of running applications in one’s own datacenter is still dominate, the rising costs and staff requirements associated with supporting on-premise applications – and the underlying infrastructure to run them on – provide a compelling argument for an alternate application delivery model such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Another key advantage of the software as a service (SaaS) delivery model is that it enables small to medium sized companies to operate world class enterprise software - without the high priced hardware, maintenance and other infrastructure costs – just as other large companies do worldwide.  This benefit alone can give you a technical leap in efficiency over your competition.

Here are a few more benefits to consider:

• No expensive hardware to purchase;
• Rapid deployment of the software into production;
• Remote accessibility from anywhere there is an internet connection;
• Maintain a competitive advantage at a low cost;
• Superior protection and security of your data;
• Reduced dependency on IT services;
• Easy partner management – adding trading partners is instantaneous;
• No transaction fees like traditional VANs

These are just some of the advantages of investing in a software as a service solution when looking to streamline your business processes, increase efficiencies and reduce data error. 

To read more about the eBridge ePortal (SaaS) application – Click here.

Dave Malda
Marketing Coordinator

Over the summer we launched a new service called SalesAmigo. It is a software as a service solution for Webstore owners that seamlessly integrates webstore data with any accounting package. We launched first with eBay webstores and QuickBooks.

This past month we made it through the various eBay hoops to gain their stamp of approval and we are thrilled about that. For our webstore owners this means no matter how big you are, we can handle your traffic load. Effectively, the certification enables us to process up to 1.5 million transactions per day. So bring them on!

Wow!  What a conference.  I am just back from NAV Directions 2008 and what an eye opener it was!  I am new to the NAV Platform so I had no idea how dedicated the channel and the users are to their NAV.  There seemed to just simply be a lot of heart and passion there regarding NAV.

I went as a delegate for eBRIDGE to ’scope out’ the crowd and who’s who.  I met a lot of new people and saw some familiar faces too.  As an ISV, I was made to feel welcome as a newcomer to their community.

There is even a NAV band called the c/siders (lol).  As their first official groupie, I got to video tape almost the whole performance for them and if you were there you will know who I am by my tag line…I SPEAK EDI.

We do our EDI in a very different way then the EDI companies currently in the NAV channel. What is so different?  Our trading fees - period.  We have a best practice EDI solution that runs totally unattended - does not need a VAN or AS2 software.

EDI does not have to be traumatic or medicinal for you.  Take the eBRIDGE ePORTAL challenge and find out for yourself………………..  jchirrey@ebridgesoft.com

Jennifer Chirrey

A lot of the time when a corporation, like Bed Bath and Beyond for instance, has multiple store locations they will choose to order products from you in the form of an SDQ purchase order. For those who don’t know what an SDQ purchase order is, it is a “Store Destination Quantity” order. These orders are kind of like one giant order with mini-orders or sub-orders contained within them.

To get a little more technical, each PO line is followed by an SDQ line that can contain up to 10 different shipping locations. When an order is processed through your map, these SDQ lines are what sorts the products according to which location they are to be shipped to. This means that each Sales Order created in your accounting software will contain all of the products meant for each location, instead of one Sales Orders for each different product.

A common problem we here in the help desk face is explaining how these orders work and what to do if they fail. If an order is not successfully brought into your accounting software on the first attempt, you may need to reprocess from our ePortal. To do this, you MUST open the order up by clicking on the document number so that you can see each individual order in list form in a new window. In that window, check off the individual orders, or check “reprocess all” (which is a new function that is massive time saver!), and then click reprocess to make them available for download. The final step is to complete your normal inbound run to bring everything into your accounting software. It’s that easy.

Cheers!

Get all of your EDI problems relieved with one complete solution from eBridge Software with No Transaction fees!

How can this be you ask? If your a Sage Software using any Sage Software ERP package give me a call. We not only integrate regular EDI documents, you can also be flexible in integrating your Website or working with companies that demand more then basic EDI such as XML formatted sales orders. Most competitive products don’t offer this level of functionality with true hands off integration.

If your currently using a Non-integrated solution or even a competing product and would like to save your company money. I’ll gladly cut your VAN charges by moving to our solution as many customers have done though the course of this year. With the economy in a down swing more and more companies will be looking to save money and this is one way you can ensure your company thrives.

Why pay fees when you don’t need to.

Great time to Switch providers.

Thanks.

 Wayne Thompson
Account Manager
(Sage Software Products)
wthompson@ebridgesoft.com

1-800-755-6921 Ext 247

So you just finished your best month ever. You had 300 more orders come in from your trading partners than ever before. You are on top of the world. Then you receive the bill from your Value Added Network of choice and realize that there is a high price associated with being successful, VAN charges. They get you on kilo-characters, line items, transactions and interconnects to other value added networks. You continue to pay because without the VAN you can’t deal with your trading partners. Well, think again!

You can eliminate all those transaction fees, kilo-character charges a VAN will charge by moving your EDI documents to the ePortal Solution from eBRIDGE Software. The ePortal Solution from eBRIDGE Software allows you to send and receive unlimited documents to and from your trading partners without having to worry about what the bill will be next month. It gives you a place to store and archive your EDI documents and supports all the major EDI communication methods. Best of all, you can bundle the ePortal Solution with a tight integration into your ERP, removing the need for double entry and its associated costs and errors.

If you are fed up VAN fees and want to see what eBRIDGE can do to improve your business efficiencies, feel free to contact me at 905-635-3328 or jisaak@ebridgesoft.com.

Cheers,
Jay

Hi All,

As part of eBridge’s Technical Support Team, I understand just how complicated EDI can be. This is why I’d like to start blogging about the problems some of our clients face and the solutions we’ve worked out. When I started here at eBridge about 8 months ago, I was assured our summer season would be slow in Technical Support. Turns out this was the busiest we’ve been yet. More often than not, we received calls from clients who were simply filling in for a colleague on vacation and they were completely unaware of our software or what to do if something suddenly fails. So, we decided to make things a little easier. We’ve created a new line of Online Tutorials designed to show our users exactly how to get the files the Help Desk needs to begin looking into a problem. The tutorials range from obtaining an “Export Only” to showing you what your map files should look like and where to find them!! Whether you’re new to eBridge or have been a client for years, these tutorials are a great way to learn more about the software and be proactive if a problem should arise.

Check them out and let us know what you think!!!

support@ebridgesoft.com

Cheers!

Andrea

We’ve been trying new ways of communicating with you, our existing and new customers, like this blog and email newsletters. Last month we sent newsletters out to over 2,000 customers announcing new developments in our products like Amazon and Paypal connections and just recently new enhancements to ePortal (see the post below). We have also been sending new potential customers your stories about how you are using our services and products and the benefits you’ve told us you’re experiencing e.g.,

•    Saving hours of tedious data management
•    Gaining back time and resources to build new business
•    Ensuring satisfied customers with accurate and timely order entry
•    Maximizing efficiency with the eBridge one-stop integration service

We hope these news updates have been helpful and we look forward to your feedback. Feel free to post a comment back or get in touch with us directly

In today’s development environment it is sometimes difficult to keep up on changes which seem to be part of every day. Over the past couple of weeks we have updated the eBRIDGE Portal to include some very handy features.

We now include a time stamp for incoming files (dates are useful but many of our customers have several batches each day and can now distinguish between them). Clicking the “transaction time” heading will sort the transactions by date and time (clicking it again will resort in the opposite order).

We have also included processing capability for unknown files. We know which customers sent files when they come from a given site so we try to process the documents as far as we can. In this way, a document that has incorrect or missing data, will still show up in the Non-compliant outbox and the contents can be viewed so that any errors can be corrected. This has been a key requirement to allow people to see and manage their data even if it contains errors which is great for testing!

Not as easily visible as the above, one major change was completed at the end of August to the main processing engine for the portal. It has been completely rebuilt to process documents in a much faster and more consistence method using a new .NET component. The original .com model could sometimes take a large amount of time to process documents depending on the number and system loading. The new front end processes on 5 second intervals and is very independent of loading. Tests since the new system went live have shown transactions average well under 1 minute to traverse the portal.

As new changes and enhancements are released on the portal, I will provide updates here. Please feel free to comment (or to let me know if you have any areas of concern) and I will try to address them.