EDI Invoice processing on Trade Simple

Hi {@005D000000AKBpQIAX}​,

Thanks for positing on the Fourth Customer Community and starting a discussion – It’s definitely the right place for these questions!

On Trade Simple, a GRN (Goods Received Note) is a document created by the customer to notify their supplier what they have received in their delivery. Hopefully, this matches what the supplier has sent on their Delivery Note, but this will also show any discrepancies between the planned delivery items, and what actually was received. 

The GRN can be created this way if a customer is EDI enabled – and it can also be created on the customer’s Trade Simple portal online. In relation to invoice acceptance, the GRN is crucial for an invoice to be automatically accepted, alternatively, if a supplier sends an invoice without a relating GRN on the system, the customer is able to manually approve the invoice on the Trade Simple website. 

In regards to your second question, all documents in Trade Simple should have a Purchase Order on the system. Yet it is also possible for a supplier to send a stand-alone invoice to their customer without an existing thread of documents being on the system. This would not be automatically approved and would only be accepted if the customer manually approves it. 

I hope this helps answer your queries – Let me know if there is anything else I can help with! 

Many thanks, 

Paul

Fourth

Thanks Paul for your valuable inputs.​

Thanks Paul for your valuable Inputs. From your Input I understood that GRN is created by the customer either via EDI or through trade simple portal. For example ARAMARK is a customer for Starbucks, we receive orders from them via tradesimple(EDI),and send Purchase order confirmation and invoice via EDI. So ​GRN is created by ARAMARK in trade simple? In regards to send query- As you said that stand alone invoice can be sent, wherever such invoice is send ,Invoice failure notification is received from trade simple. What should we done for this process. What is required to get it approved by customer? this case comes up in online/manual orders.

Hi {@005D000000AKBpQIAX}​,

You are more than welcome – Always happy to help in any way that I can!

Yes, you are correct, the customer creates a GRN. In your example, Aramark certainly would be creating the GRN on Trade Simple.

In relation to failed invoices, the notification received should include a failure message indicating the reason of the transmission failure. The failure notification messages are designed to help you troubleshoot the incident – Depending on the content of the notification message, if this isn’t something you can remedy yourself, then it sounds like it could be a technical issue.

In this instance, I would advise to ‘Raise a Technical Case’ to our brilliant Technical Support team, as they are on hand to support technical issues. If doing so, please provide full details of the issue and if possible, a copy/attachment of an example of the failed notification you are receiving so that they can investigate your issue more quickly and efficiently.

Hope this helps – Let me know there is anything else I can help with!

Many thanks,

Paul

Fourth

Hi Paul,

Thanks.​ regarding the second query- Yes I contact the technical team when we face any technical issues. As mentioned by you in the above message  that -"Yet it is also possible for a supplier to send a stand-alone invoice to their customer without an existing thread of documents being on the system. This would not be automatically approved and would only be accepted if the customer manually approves it. ".I would like to understand this point. Do you mean that stand alone invoice can also be accepted without having the Purchase order or Purchase Order confirmation in the thread? What is required from customer side to accept this?

Hi @Mansi Khetrapal​ 

Yes, Trade Simple has the functionality to send a stand-alone invoice without a Purchase Order or confirmation being in the system. For this to be accepted from the customer side, the customer needs to manually approve the invoice on the system.

Please note that sending stand-alone invoices is usually a rare practice. If the customer is using Trade Simple to order their products, the Purchase Order should always be present on the system. Also, please remember it is advisable to wait for the customer to send a GRN, before sending an invoice for the order. This process allows the most up-to-date information about the delivery to be in the thread before invoicing.

I hope that makes sense? Let me know if you have any further questions!

Many thanks,

Paul

Fourth