What is Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)?

EDI stands for electronic data interchange. EDI means the electronic exchange of business documents, such as orders, delivery slips and invoices. These documents are exchanged among business partners in structured data form and without manual intervention. There are set standards for this which apply internationally.

The goal of EDI is the easy and secure exchange of data between companies, independent of formats or merchandise management systems. Furthermore, companies should be able to further process this data without having to manually record it again. Data exchange via EDI is faster, more efficient, and less prone to error than exchange via other processes.