Are Your Amazon PO’s Failing?
Due to the end of year rush, consumer products companies exchanging orders with Amazon through Vendor Central may have missed the required naming structure change that just went into effect.
In the fourth quarter of 2103, Amazon announced that they were changing their naming structure for EDI 850 PO documents, effective January 15, 2014 to increase the amount of unique numbers generated. PO numbers will still consist of eight characters, but instead of a letter at the beginning there will be a number, followed by six characters (letter and/or numbers) in the body of the PO number, finishing with a letter at the end (an example: Y1112844 could become 3T435V4Y or 5345622K).
If an order system is expecting to see only numbers for a portion of the PO number, and now encounters letters, it could stop orders. Too often the lack of understanding can cause a lack of action. Now, with orders failing, Help Desks and customer service may be behind, and some Vendors who may have built logic based on the format of the PO number are left scrambling to determine what changed and how to fix it. DCS understands this type of change and can help you make changes in your system without disruption to your process..
While the announcement specifies the EDI 850 PO document, any documents which follow the 850 are also impacted, including the Advanced Shipment Notice (856) and the Invoice (810), which also carry the P.O. number.
Remember, your method of data transmission does not change. To economically and securely connect to Amazon, you should use AS2.
DCS can help you review your existing EDI maps and processes and write new more efficient processes designed to meet today’s needs. Contact your DCS EDI Specialist or e-mail us at [email protected] for more information.
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