EDI 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgment

The X12 855 transaction set is a Purchase Order Acknowledgement. It is used by sellers to confirm the receipt of a purchase order (an EDI 850 transaction) from a buyer, eliminating the need to call or fax a confirmation. The 855 also communicates whether the PO was accepted or rejected, or what changes may have been made to accepted orders by the seller. Thus, like many acknowledgement transactions, the 855 can indicate that the order was accepted, rejected or accepted with changes, as follows:

• Accepted
• Rejected
• Accepted with Changes
  • All line items accepted, change freight or cash terms (i.e., header level changes only)
  • Change or reject one or more line items, no header-level changes
  • Header-level changes, and one or more line items changed or rejected

Each of these may be provided with or without an indication of the product availability. The 855 transaction may also be used to advise a buyer of a pre-arranged merchandise shipment directly from a vendor. The seller will typically transmit an 810 Invoice once the product ships. In some cases, an 856 Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) must be provided ahead of the shipment. 1 EDI Source has extensive experience managing EDI operations for retailers, manufacturers and their suppliers. Our EDI Outsourcing Services provide fully hosted solutions, including the hardware, software, staffing, security and more, all managed by our staff of EDI experts.