Tax Service Companies are best known for their bricks and mortar offices. Folks walk in with a drawer of receipts and walk out with a wad of cash (they hope). In addition to having friendly face-to-face offices, our customer also sells self-service tax software for the do-it-yourself’ers.
Both retail and online stores wanted to stock our customer’s Tax Software.
Retailers were eager to offer our customer’s tax on-line or on site at their stores. However, to do business with these large retailers (we call them trading partners), our Tax Service Customer had to have EDI fully integrated into their ERP system. This would ensure that orders for their tax software were right. The end goal was always to provide tax software to customers in time for tax season.
Cindy knew EDI inside and out.
Cindy, EDI Project Manager at the Tax Services Company, was a pro. She had managed EDI for many businesses across several key industries (including healthcare and food/beverage). She lived and breathed strings of 3 numbers such as 810s, 850s, 852s.
Her team used Microsoft Dynamics GP as their ERP. EDI transactions were connected to 7 different maps. Orders received were manually integrated into Microsoft Dynamics GP and invoices were sent back into Microsoft Dynamics GP manually.
The Solution: eBridge helped Cindy integrate 10 trading partners
The complexity of the work above alone warranted the Tax Service Company to contact eBridge Connections 10 years ago to start a conversation about accounting integration for EDI. With over 10 trading partners, our customer knew this was going to be a large undertaking. But, eBridge Connections made it manageable for both Inbound and Outbound EDI requirements.
Cindy had a “hands on” approach and partnered with eBridge to better understand how her Tax Service Company could take a more active role in their EDI management.
eBridge Connections set-up maps between 3 of the 10 trading partners and the Tax Service Company was able to replicate the business rules for the remaining 7. A bit of tweaking, data alterations and poof – they had EDI integration. EDI automation works hand in hand with EDI integration to create this success story!
Today, Cindy continues to manage EDI from a bird’s eye view. eBridge Connections has removed manual ‘touch point’ data entry.
“How do people even do manual data entry anymore!?” laughed Cindy over lunch.
Together, Cindy and eBridge make a fierce EDI pair.
Without integration automation, Cindy figures EDI businesses are, unfortunately:
• Using a 3rd parties to send data correctly to retailers (this is expensive & lacks in-house control)
• Building EDI customization (retailers change requirements, this equals rework)
• Faxing or using a messenger pigeon to manage their orders (do pigeons even know how to work fax machines?)
We don’t like to toot our own horns, but… toot, toot.
Although Cindy is the real hero of this integration story, eBridge Connections helped her streamline item, order and customer data processing. The cloud-based universal integration platform for Microsoft Dynamics GP (that is a mouthful) has automated vital business processes and eliminated manual data entry. Now there is a bi-directional data exchange between the EDI trading partners the Tax Service Company works with.
It all boils down to these benefits:
• Reduce deployment time by using an prebuilt ‘adaptor’
• Eliminate manual data entry and avoid costly errors
• Increase the speed of data exchange, improving customer service efficiency
• Upgrade your ERP or add connections (eCommerce, EDI, CRM) with ease
• Free up time and resources to focus on your business