What is the best standard to use for business document exchange (invoices, POs etc)?

Question

If I need to implement sending and receiving of business documents from system to system (invoices, POs, remittance advice, etc) what standard would you recommend for best interop and why? It could be XML or otherwise.

Answer 1

There are various standard for doing this like SWIFT - TSU Bolereo Twist

However none of the standards have been fully adopted/accepted by the industry and hence they would not be interop. The other methodology is using a documents flow management system where by you scan and store all the documents as images and build a work flow around sending and receiving these.

Answer 2

PDF - everyone has it, its cross platform and it can handle any document type. No good if you want to edit it though.

Answer 3

The standard is X12. That's pretty much it. See the EDI page on Wikipedia.

Answer 4

There is the ebXML standard, which covers not only document formats but also the processes between business entities.

Answer 5

UBL (Universal Business Language) is the latest attempt to do this, managed by OASIS. The problem is that the holy grail of business document interop is really a long way off, if realistic at all. That is why products like Biztalk exist. Biztalk's primary purpose is to take the document in one partner's format and convert it into your format, or vice versa.

Even huge standards like ANSI X12 and Edifact were problematic because even when two partners exchanged documents suing an agreed standard there were usually enough differences in the way the documents were utilized that it required custom coding to process them.

My suggestion is to expose a clean and easy to understand XML format that very closely matches your business needs and let your partners use whatever method they currently use with other partners to process your document. Trying to follow an industry standard will be much more work and probably provide little benefit.

Answer 6

I would look at (in this order):

• Industry-specific formats. Always your best choice if you have a homogeneous trading group.
• cXML or XCBL if you want an XML solution with an established standard.
• X12 if you have unlimited time, money, and willing partners.
• custom XML only if you have requirements outside a standard or such a small amount of data to transmit that the standard would bloat your documents too much.

This, of course, all depends on the problem domain. I would think about these questions:

1. Are you in an industry with specific format or regulatory requirements? For instance, are there details like the chemical composition of a gas that you're ordering? Are there hazardous materials that require special orders or handling?
2. Does your industry have a specific format already or do you need a generic one? Chem/Gas, Retail, Big Oil, Airlines, Financial Services, and many others already have formats and sometimes networks established.
3. Do you work with corporate purchasers who have procurement applications? If so, I'd take a look at cXML or XCBL which handles the PunchOut standard which enables purchasing systems to order from online catalogs.
4. What is the sophistication of your partners? EDI is old and powerful, but really hard to understand. People new to the process are more comfortable with XML-based formats.
5. What is your position in the market? Can you drive a standard for your partners or will they dictate a format to you? In which case, will you need to adopt several standards? Who will translate between them?