Do You Suffer from SAOD?

TAKING THE LEAD

Do you Suffer from SAOD?

Lewis Davis

Senior Director of Technology and Research

Do you suffer from Severe Acronym Overload Disorder or SAOD? I know I do on some days. If you read through any of the trade magazines you may have been affected at one time. Thank goodness, we have Google to help identify what each acronym means. fcB2B has a long list of numbers and acronyms that mean something. If you listen to members at our meetings talk, you might think they are part of a secret government agency. “I sent an 850 to you but you didn’t send me an 855 or an 856. What about the 997?” All of these numbers indicate a different electronic document. Let’s look at the acronyms and numbers used within the fcB2B language so we can eliminate a little of your SAOD.

Let’s start at the beginning and work our way through the fcB2B alphabet.

fcB2B — This stands for Floor Covering Business to Business and is the group that manages the standards and helps suppliers become fcB2B compliant.

fcB2B has a long list of numbers and acronyms that mean something. If you listen to members at our meetings talk, you might think they are part of a secret government agency.

WS — Web service is a connection to a supplier’s computer that allows a software package to ask a question and get an answer in near real-time. The web services that fcB2B have defined are Stock Check, Order Status, and Price Check. New services in process or being reviewed include Reservation and fcB2B setup request and response. The Reservation Service will allow the reservation of a product in the supplier’s system electronically. The fcB2B setup request and response would standardize the process for a company new to fcB2B to request setup with their supplier.

FTP or SFTP — File Transfer Protocol or Secure File Transfer Protocol is the communication method used by fcB2B to send and receive documents between the retailer and supplier. This is a direct connection and eliminates any third-party charges for managing the connections.

EDI — Electronic Data Interchange is the computer to computer exchange of business documents in a standard format.

X12 — Is chartered by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for more than 40 years. It develops and maintains EDI standards to drive business processes globally. fcB2B uses the X12 EDI standard to define the Price Catalog, PO/PO Acknowledgment, Advanced Ship Notice and Invoice.

fcB2B — This stands for Floor Covering Business to Business and is the group that manages the standards and helps suppliers become fcB2B compliant.

832 — This is the X12 number for the Product Catalog. This is the electronic document sent by suppliers with product and price information used to load and maintain flooring software.

850 — Electronic Purchase Order generated by flooring software and processed by suppliers. This provides suppliers with the information required to generate an order.

855 — Electronic PO confirmation sent by the supplier after receiving an 850. This is a confirmation that the order was processed and contains values indicating either success or failure when processing the PO.

856 — Advance Ship Notice or ASN. Think of this as a detailed electronic bill of lading from the supplier. This contains the quantity, product, PO number, ship to and from, and other information needed to receive in the shipment.

810 — The electronic invoice is the final document in the fcB2B bag. This allows the retailer to receive a copy of the invoice and the flooring software to match what was ordered, received and invoiced. This completes the 3-way match and ensures the retailer isn’t missing any product and wasn’t billed incorrectly.

997 — This is a functional acknowledgment which is automatically generated and returned for every document sent. This ensures that when sending an X12 document, the receiving party receives it and it wasn’t lost in space. The document can convey the status of the received document and any errors found in the original document. ❚