Retailer EDI is not one connection. It is a controlled transaction chain. Here is how the 850, 855, 856, 810 and 846 documents fit around a Fishbowl-centered order-to-cash workflow.
850 — Purchase Order
The retailer's purchase order establishes the requested items, quantities, dates, locations and commercial references. Before creating a Fishbowl sales order, validate the customer, ship-to location, product identifiers, units and duplicate controls.
855 — Purchase Order Acknowledgment
The acknowledgment tells the retailer what was accepted, changed or rejected. It should reflect the actual Fishbowl and operating decision—not simply echo the original order. Timing and partner-specific status codes matter.
856 — Advance Ship Notice
The ASN communicates what shipped and how it is packed. Shipment, carton, item, carrier and tracking detail must agree with the physical fulfillment event. Incorrect hierarchy or timing can create receiving failures and chargebacks.
810 — Invoice
The invoice should be generated only after the required shipping and Fishbowl conditions are satisfied. Prices, allowances, freight, terms and retailer references must reconcile with the purchase order and shipment.
846 — Inventory Inquiry/Advice
The 846 communicates approved availability. Do not publish raw on-hand inventory without considering allocations, safety stock, channel policy, locations, kits and outside warehouses.
The control layer around the documents
A dependable EDI operation also needs partner templates, validation, canonical data, transaction correlation, exception queues, alerts, retries and audit history. DataShip can own that Fishbowl-facing control layer while working with an established EDI network or a focused pilot architecture.
- Know which system owns each business field
- Correlate every outbound response with the original order
- Make failures visible before a customer or retailer reports them
- Require controlled replay after the underlying issue is fixed