Our company, Geiger, has been receiving e-PSA standard order status and shipping information from our key Production Partners (a.k.a. suppliers) for quite a long time.  We have calculated we save $4.56 for each order where order status and shipping information is sent to us this way, compared to those where we have to call or fax to get the same information.  Considering the order volume we do with e-PSA enabled suppliers, we save the equivalent of almost 3 employees every year.  Now, we need more suppliers on board trading directly or through e-PSA service providers such as DistributorCentral and PPAI’s Order Trax.  

What many don’t consider is how our Production Partners benefit in a comparable way.  They get fewer calls asking for information that they automatically send to us electronically.

Recently, one of our preferred Suppliers told us that roughly 45% of the calls they receive from their Distributor customers pertain to order status and shipping information.  In contrast, only about 22% -- rough half of their distributor average – of the calls received from our firm are requesting that information.  

We are pleased at the savings we have realized.  We’d like to think that being less of a burden on our Production Partners means they can spend more time helping us create sales.

We're all back from the annual e-PSA Core Group Peer-to-Peer (P2P) '07 meeting.  This year we met in Dallas TX. We had a good turn-out and an even better discussion.  Some of the hot topics were:

• Does e-PSA Certification need to be updated to include trading partner specific information?  Consensus was no
• Schema training.  With Invoice and Product Catalog on the horizon, members wanted to know more about schemas
• Security training.  How does it work and how do we do it?
• What are the gaps (if any) with the current Invoice PIP?
• How are we going to get product information between trading partners?
• What is the TPIR and how do we use it?

As you can see, there are some fairly heavy topics, and we had a great discussion on all of them.

Now that many e-PSA member firms are gaining moment sending and receiving Order Status, Advance Shipment Notice, and Purchase Orders.  The next document on the road-map is the Invoice.  To prepare your company for the Invoice, there are a few things you need to know in order to get going quickly.

First off, you can download the schema here.

Second, this is the first time that e-PSA is using schemas for the foundation for creating XML documents.  For those that are going through a solution provide and not creating XML directly, this won't impact you at all.  But for those that are creating XML, this will be a significant change since there is much more validation embedded in a schema than what's available with the DTD.

If you'd like more information about schemas and how they're used, let us know.