The benefits of EDI for small businesses

Summary: Small businesses can leverage an EDI implementation to grow their business, reduce costs, improve accuracy and differentiate their business from the competition.

In most cases, small businesses become EDI compliant because of a mandate from a major client. Many smaller businesses will see this requirement as an additional cost and unnecessary hassle. It could not be further from the truth. As a small business, EDI will give you the opportunity to scale and grow the business like never before, recovering the initial investment easily. Here are some of the benefits a small business could see from EDI:

Accuracy – The most significant change would be improved data accuracy. Not only from the small business but also from clients. Incorrect order information is a common cause of delays and additional costs. With EDI there are fewer errors, meaning fewer returns and wrong orders.

Cost – Labor hours represent a large part of the operating costs of small businesses. With EDI, all transactions are electronic, saving you person-hours and the costs of processing paper orders. The average cost saving of around 35% will make a difference to the bottom line.

Differentiation – As a small business, differentiation from the competition is key. EDI will provide a key differentiation from the competition when pushing for bidding for new contracts.

Payment – With EDI, invoicing and payments automation will mean fewer errors on invoices. Fewer errors will lead to faster payment and no delays.

Written by Act Data Services, Inc. 1-800-ACT-DATA. Their EDI service solutions scale from one man operations to fortune 500 companies.