EDI can have a significant impact on your business, regardless of your industry. Although it may be quite easy to understand how the electronic transfer of information can be beneficial to large organizations, SMB owners may feel reluctant to use an EDI solution. Read more to find out why such fears are unwarranted.
Reducing expenses
The electronic exchange of documents will reduce your expenses on paper and postage, as well as your envelope storage and printing needs. And although separately, each one of the above does not seem too important, when combined they can amount to a significant cost. In reality, it has been estimated that using an EDI solution to process orders can reduce your cost by more than 6 dollars, compared to manual processing.
Of course, in order for a small or medium business to enjoy these benefits, it will have to invest in an EDI solution. And although the transition to the electronic system seems difficult for SMBs, it is the only way to cut expenses and increase productivity.
Eliminating human errors
Issues related to human error are quite often in traditional solutions. There is a wide variety of issues that may affect the speed and accuracy of sales and other activities. Either these issues pertain to illegible handwriting or lost correspondence, they can cause delays and in some cases, they can even lead to losing customers.
With an EDI solution, you won’t have to worry anymore about some printer malfunction or a badly handwritten document that makes the order impossible to read. The same stands for important documents that may fail to be delivered due to unexpected delays.
With EDI, you can rest assured that your documents will be automatically delivered to the right recipients through a secure electronic connection. Software integration will allow you to monitor which documents are sent and when, while you will also be able to use multiple file templates to meet the different needs of your partners. EDI transactions only take a few minutes to complete, rather than days, thus making invoice payment that much easier and quicker.
Document processing
To ensure that you can take full advantage of your EDI’s features, document processing will have to become your team’s top priority. Modern ERP solutions simplify processing, by automating document data upload and integrating such data with the information already available in your system.
Even though automated document transmission and processing can prove extremely valuable, you should always keep in mind that, as an SMB, you can only benefit from an EDI solution as long as your team is ready to properly use this information.
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