What is an ASN?
An Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN) is a document sent from a supplier to a customer that provides specific details about the delivery of items to that customer. If both the supplier and their customer have EDI, then the ASN can be sent seamlessly via EDI. The ASN is primarily sent by the supplier to notify the customer that the items are ready for shipment. However it also provides further information about the contents of the delivery to help the customer optimise receipt and track the shipment.
As the ASN contains the relevant product delivery information, the receiving customer can then begin to prepare and fulfil their own orders in advance as they know (a) what is to be shipped and (b) by when it is going to arrive.
What information is in an ASN?
The types of information that can be found in a typical ASN include the following:
- Order information (the purchase order number, etc)
- Product information (product types, quantities, etc)
- Sender’s address
- Delivery address
- Shipment date
- Expected delivery date
- Serial numbers (for tracking delivery)
- Carrier information
EDI and ASN
An EDI system can easily send, receive and process EDI messages like the Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN). The ASN is presented in a format that is designed to be read by computer systems with EDI software, and so was not designed to be read by humans. The EDI ASN is also known as EDI 856 or ANSI X12 EDI 856 message and the X12 reference is to the X12 Transaction Set for use within the context of an EDI environment. The EDI ASN is made up of different machine-readable elements that provide various details about the delivery.
Once the EDI ASN is received, all the delivery information is automatically uploaded into the customer’s ERP system giving the customer immediate notification of the delivery consignment. The ASN information can then be checked against the original order, to determine any problems in advance.
If EDI is not used, then the ASN is not as useful as it may not get to the correct recipients at the ideal time, and in addition with human intervention the possibility of incorrect data input will increase significantly.
ASN Benefits
The importance of EDI ASN’s in supply chain
Supplier Benefits
- Fulfilling customer orders leads to enhanced customer confidence
- Reduces time and saves costs – as manual data entry is significantly decreased
Customer Benefits
- Transparency and Certainty – the ASN can be checked against the original order, highlighting any discrepencies in advance
- Real-Time tracking – the delivery progress can be tracked; which helps when it is time-critical.
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