EDI Software/Platform recommendation

[HCHTech]

I have a small paper distributor as a client, and they have new, large customer (a holding company that owns a couple hundred fast food restaurants) that wants to send them orders using EDI. From what I understand, they would need either a local software or an account on a web-based platform to ingest that data and give them a summary they can work with to order product.

This isn't my world, so I don't have much to offer them in the way of suggestions. Has anyone done this or is familiar enough with the process to make any recommendations?

 

[Markverhyden]

I'd start the conversation with their suppliers. Do they support API/EDI third party apps? We've got a customer, in shipping, which uses a service to handle all their shipping/storage needs. Have to integrate with other companies systems to transmit critical info like POD, GPS, etc. They use another company which write the integrations between the two. At the end of the day they're all databases.

The integrator is www.atlassian.com so maybe give them a call to see what they have. If it was me I'd talk to the customer as well. Almost all QSR restaurant chains already have established relations with suppliers like Sysco and PFG. Does the product need to be branded or not?

 

[HCHTech]

The customer seems pretty clueless, but I'm not going to get into the middle of this if I can avoid it - it's not something I would support, so I'm just going to recommend them finding a vendor to figure it out.

 

[Markverhyden]

The customer seems pretty clueless, but I'm not going to get into the middle of this if I can avoid it - it's not something I would support, so I'm just going to recommend them finding a vendor to figure it out.

After all that a tiny little little light came on in my head. They can just use one of the many "POS" systems. I did a quick check and Squareup has that function.

Customer Accounts for Square Online | Square Support Center - US

But I'm with you. Point them in a direction and let them figure it out. Nothing worse than being caught 2 vendors blaming each other when there's literally nothing you can do. Which is the issue we have with Atlassian.