Announcement:
Announcement:
Announcement:
US Food Imports Channel Automation on Zoho Books
Overview
US Food Imports (USFI) gained seamless administration of Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, and Invoices by updating their ERP-EDI integration using Zenbridge. Managing international vendors and US-based retail customers, USFI automated their ERP System flawlessly, saving hours daily.
“Great EDI Integration!”
Erik Lieberman.
President & Founder, US Food Imports LLC
Introduction
US Food Imports is the intermediatory of US retail companies to source produce, finished food, and ingredients from global suppliers. It also provides solutions to foreign food exporters for getting goods into the US marketplace. It is led by Erik R. Lieberman, who has extensive legal experience in food safety, food labeling, food marketing, international food trade, agriculture, and federal legislative and regulatory processes. USFI has a complex business model where American retail companies use USFI’s help to source food products through them. USFI identifies vendors for these retail companies and arranges to ship orders placed by these retail stores. So, whenever a retail buyer places an order request with USFI, USFI will place a request with vendors, the best vendor will ship directly to the buyer and send the bill to USFI, and USFI will send an invoice to the buyer.
USFI uses Zenbridge to automate, from end to end, its ERP system between its vendors and buyers.
“Zenbridge saves us so much time in integrating with our ERP system,” says Erik.
Challenges
- Generate a Purchase Order(PO) and a Sales Order(SO) when the ERP receives an EDI 875.
- Generate a Bill and an Invoice when the ERP receives an EDI 810.
- Compulsory UPC codes for all vendors and customers.
- The same items should be present in all 4 EDIs – 875, 850, 810, and 880.
With expertise in food regulations in the US, Erik Lieberman has the best advice for FSVP compliance solutions for the world’s largest retailers, manufacturers, and new start-ups in the food industry. In order to better the administration, Erik wanted to establish a two-way process in USFI’s ERP system where the information exchanged between its customers, and vendors goes through an added layer of custom logic to generate PO and Invoice for every SO and Bill received. It would help Eric to use his expertise to customize and verify the order when received and do it faster. It would also ensure that his customers are buying from the right vendors.It would also ensure that his customers are buying from the right vendors.
However, after talking with their former EDI service provider, Erik realized they could not incorporate his automation strategies into USFI’s ERP system. Erik accurately describes it as a“Lack of integration options” Thus, USFI required an alternative.
Solutions
After thorough research and useful references, Erik came across Zenbridge, which had just the integration solutions he was looking for - an EDI platform that could integrate ERP automation and custom logic for large volumes of EDI at USFI’s ERP system - Zoho Books.
After several insightful sessions, Zenbridge’s business analyst proposed a step-by-step process to Erik to integrate EDIs with USFI’s ERP system and integrate multi-layer custom logic to help Erik easily interpret, edit, and approve orders in one place.
“I was looking for this kind of solution all over the world, and no one in the US could do this for me,” Erik says. “Zenbridge is the only system that could take care of the issue, which is a great solution,” he adds further.
The integration began in mid-November 2020. The process required integration between Zenbridge and USFI’s ERP Zoho Books and contained two EDI flows as follows:
Flow 1 - Sales Order and Purchase Order
The buyer companies send their orders to USFI in the form of EDI 875. When USFI receives the EDI 875, Zenbridge converts the EDI into an editable draft called the Sales Order on Zoho Books. The Sales Order will contain EDI 875 data, such as item pricing, item quantity, date of delivery, etc., which USFI can break down and edit easily.
USFI can assign a vendor to the buyer for future orders. As an example, every time Zenbridge generates a Sales Order from the buyer, the ERP will automatically process the order only for its “assigned vendor” unless it is changed manually. The ERP also displays the vendor’s pricing list (created by USFI) for the items ordered by the buyer.
As soon as USFI finishes editing custom fields and approves the Sales Order draft, Zenbridge converts the draft into a Purchase Order and sends it to the assigned vendor in the form of EDI 850.
Flow 2 - Bill and Invoice
Once the order is shipped to the buyer, the vendor sends an EDI 810 containing the total billable amount to USFI. Zenbridge automatically converts this EDI into a Bill that is entered into the ERP system and is to be paid by USFI.
Zenbridge also generates a collectable invoice to be sent to the buyer. USFI can customize this invoice to add discounts and messages or make any final changes before sending it to the buyer. Once USFI reviews and approves the information in the invoice, Zenbridge converts the invoice into EDI 880 and sends it to the buyer. Once the buyer makes the payment of the Invoice, USFI easily clears the bills with vendors.
“The Integration with Zoho Books is fantastic and great,” says Erik when asked about the integration strategy created using Zenbridge.
In addition, there are several tasks performed using custom logic created by Zenbridge to ensure the EDI network experiences zero file errors during conversion and transmission. Some custom logics are as follows:
- The reference number of the Sales Order and Purchase Order should match.
- The reference number of the Bill and Invoice should match.
- Item references should match in all EDIs.
- The Sales Total should be greater than the Purchase Total.
- Delivery address and D&B number checks.
- Pricing list and discount checks.
Results
With the automation of EDI and custom draft features integrated into Zoho Books using Zenbridge, USFI could manage data exchange with high accuracy. With modern integration solutions, USFI can quickly add new onboarding companies into the EDI process of their ERP system.
USFI can also specify vendors to the buyers according to preconditions set by Erik, eliminating frustrating, repetitive tasks. The preconditions can be customized in the ERP system using the configurations created using Zenbridge.
Custom logic sanity checks are always performed by Zenbridge before orders are dispersed to the vendors and before invoices are dispersed to the buyers. It ensures that USFI can catch errors and correct them in real time. As a result, it protects the reputation of all parties from sending bad data and prevents bad data from leaking out.
“Usually, when there is an issue, the team resolves it quickly,” Erik mentions while talking about Zenbridge’s support. He says, “You (the support team) are doing a great job in helping us solve issues and the integrations… you spot errors even before we do.”
USFI’s EDI-ERP Integration is one of a kind and was made possible with the help of Zenbridge’s EDI platform, which could achieve seemingly impossible results. USFI serves major American retail customers and has partnered with multiple global food exporters, managing everything flawlessly and developing a solid trust factor in the market.
“I am happy to recommend Zenbridge as all the services we use in Zenbridge is a top-time saver. This is all we wanted as affordable and efficient business software for EDI” – Erik Lieberman.
EDI integration
Less than 2 months.
End-to-end connection testing
Less than a week.
End-to-end Implementation
Less than a month.
Ready to Get Started?
Fastest go-live
Pre-built connectors
Unparalled support
Unmatched pricing
Pay when you go live
Dallas Galleria One,
13355 Noel Rd, Suite 1100,
Dallas, TX 75240
United States
13355 Noel Rd, Suite 1100,
Dallas, TX 75240
United States
Follow Us
@2024. All rights reserved.