EDI and EIP FAQ
What is EDI (electronic data interchange)?
The transmission of customer-specific data in EDI standard format collected in groups or batches and sent to or received from the customer at regularly scheduled intervals weekly, daily or throughout the day.
What is EIP (electronic invoice presentment)?
The transmission of customer-specific invoicing data in CSV, PDF or XML format collected in an e-mail and transmitted to the customer on a daily or weekly basis.
What is the difference between EDI and EIP?
- EIP is invoicing only. EDI includes invoicing and many other transaction sets.
- EIP is sent via e-mail to the customer. EDI is sent via FTP, AS2 or a VAN to the customer.
- EIP invoicing data can be reformatted by the customer using Microsoft Excel if sent via CSV, and with programming if sent via XML.
- EDI invoicing data has to be formatted according to EDI standards by Con-way before being sent to the customer.
- EDI typically has a longer setup time than EIP, but EDI has the capability to provide special editing and include location-specific coding, which are not features of EIP.
Once I send my EDI setup request, what happens?
When we receive an EDI request, it is placed on our work queue. Within two weeks, an analyst will be assigned this request and will review your requirements. Our analyst will arrange testing and be in contact with you to ensure the testing is acceptable. Once both sides are happy with the testing data, we will move to production.
Will I get paper invoices while we are testing EDI invoices (210)?
Yes. During the EDI invoicing (210) testing process, customers receive both paper and EDI invoices. You pay from the paper invoices during testing and use the EDI data to ensure EDI invoicing will work for you.
Who pays for VAN charges?
Con-way maintains the policy that we are responsible for VAN fees to send or pick up our side of the data transmission and the customer is responsible for any VAN fees to pick up or send their side of the data transmission.
