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Understand the NetSuite procure-to-pay: EDI for B2B Manager (X12) template

Anitha Abraham
Updated

The procure-to-pay process spans the end-to-end process of requesting, purchasing, receiving, and paying for goods and services within a business. It ensures proper control over spending, vendor management, and financial accuracy.

The Celigo platform (integrator.io) through B2B Manager functions as an EDI platform that modernizes traditional B2B EDI data integrations by providing standardized REST/JSON API endpoints for EDI transactions. For the procure-to-pay process, retailers/buyers can create purchase orders in NetSuite when they have approved purchase requests. The B2B Manager in the Celigo platform converts the X12 format to a JSON canonical structure and vice-versa to facilitate seamless integrations with trading partners.

The NetSuite procure-to-pay: EDI for B2B Manager (X12) template facilitates the exchange of purchase orders, purchase order change acknowledgments, invoices, shipment notices, and functional acknowledgments/acknowledgments (997) between NetSuite and EDI trading partners.

Note

A B2B Manager subscription is required to use this template.

Benefits

  • Optimizes customer experience with timely sync of data.

  • Takes control of your integrations with tools that let you configure and allow you to make mapping changes on the fly.

  • Efficiently scales operations by automating processes that rely on trading partners and NetSuite platforms.

  • Reduces maintenance time with a dashboard for sophisticated error handling and integration support provided by Celigo.

High-level process

This NetSuite procure-to-pay template includes flows that make it easy for you to automate the high-level steps in the process outlined below.

Stakeholder/user

Helps to

Retailer/Buyer

Procurement Team / Purchasing Manager

  • Create purchase orders, that is, convert approved purchase requests to purchase orders that can be sent to suppliers

  • Manage purchase orders, that is, monitor purchase orders to ensure that the order is fulfilled by the supplier based on the requirements

Supplier/Seller

Vendor team

  • Ensure synced purchase orders, that is, the EDI purchase orders sent to the vendor are in sync with the retailer's orders

  • Send shipment notices, that is, keep the retailer posted when the supplied goods/services are delivered

  • Send invoices for supplied goods/services, that is, provide billing details for the supplied goods/services

Retailer/Buyer

Procurement Team / Purchasing Manager/ Operations/Accounts Payable teams

  • Create fulfillment orders, that is, check and indicate that the supplied goods/services in the shipment fulfill the purchase orders

  • Generate NetSuite vendor bill, that is, close the process by making the payment after checks have been done by the relevant teams

Retailer/Buyer & Supplier/Seller

Purchasing Manager/Vendor team

  • Set up acknowledgments that indicate whether the EDI documents have been sent or received

Flows

The Celigo template contains workflows you can easily configure and deploy without coding or IT support. The following built-in flows sync from the specified source data to the corresponding destination.

Since the choice of the EDI partner could vary widely, you can create the EDI connection and add exports or imports based on your specific scenario.

  • NetSuite purchase orders to EDI purchase orders (850) (add): Generates purchase orders to the EDI partner from NetSuite purchase orders. This scheduled flow will run at predefined time intervals.

  • EDI purchase order acknowledgments (855) to NetSuite purchase orders (update): Syncs EDI purchase order acknowledgments (855) from the trading partner (seller) to NetSuite purchase orders.

  • EDI advance ship notices (856) to NetSuite item fulfillments (add): Syncs EDI ship notices (856) received from the trading partner (seller) as NetSuite item fulfillments. This scheduled flow will run at predefined time intervals to parse the shipment notices from the trading partner and create item fulfillments in NetSuite for drop ship orders.

  • EDI invoice (810) to NetSuite vendor bill (add): Syncs EDI invoices (810) shared by the trading partner (seller) as NetSuite vendor bills.

  • Functional acknowledgments (997) from integrator.io to trading partner: Sends functional acknowledgments (997) from the Celigo platform (integrator.io) to the trading partner for completed inbound flows. It also updates the EDI transaction status in the EDI activity dashboard. 

    This flow can generate functional acknowledgments to the trading partner for the inbound data flows (exports) in EDI purchase order acknowledgments (855) to NetSuite purchase orders (update), EDI advance shipment notices (856) to NetSuite item fulfillments (add) or EDI invoices (810) to NetSuite vendor bills (add) flows.

  • Functional acknowledgments (997) from trading partner to integrator.io: Gets functional acknowledgments (997) from the trading partner to the Celigo platform (integrator.io) for completed outbound flows, and updates the EDI transaction status in the EDI activity dashboard.

    This flow can get functional acknowledgments from the trading partner for the outbound data flow (import) in NetSuite purchase orders to EDI purchase orders (850) (add) flow.

Error handling

Most integrator.io error messages clearly explain the error and suggest troubleshooting methods. If you need clarification on what the error means, contact Celigo support. See the endpoint documentation for errors passed through from NetSuite or trading partners.