Using REF Segments for Identifying Vendors instead of an ISA ID

Keith Weaver Updated by Keith Weaver

Convictional believes in enabling suppliers through the most effective onboarding process of all time. A Shopify seller within the Convictional can get setup within a few short steps. We spend a lot of our time focusing on this, and it should not change even when partnering with an EDI retailer.

It’s common for the ISA ID to be the two companies in a partnership. In the image above, the sender is “VENDOR” and the receiver is “RETAILER”. Imagine asking a user who uses Shopify, or WooCommerce to input an ISA ID. This would halt the onboarding process. Many do not have a strong understanding of EDI and it doesn’t make sense to force it on your partners. Convictional is here to bridge the gap between.

Technically, the vendor is not the sender of the documents, Convictional is. We take the responsibility of pulling information down from a number of sources,  translating into a range of formats and sharing it with a company’s partners. EDI files are no exception, we own this job to be done.

How does the retailer identify vendors?

It’s very simple. Every file we transact with has this REF. We set the qualifier to be “IA” which stands for internal vendor number. This is a value that is owned and set by this retailer. This is how the retailer references this partner within their internal system. It does not make much sense to use a secondary identifier such as an ISA ID.

As a retailer, how do I set this internal vendor number?

On your partnership page within Convictional, you can set this value under the “References” section.

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