Advanced Shipping Notifications

As an ongoing effort to better communicate with major vendors PSSC has invested in Advance Shipping Notification (ASN) Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) communications capability.

Major vendors are pressing publishers hard to set up EDI communications, chiefly the publishers receipt of EDI purchase orders, publishers sending EDI invoices, and finally the sending of Advance Shipping Notifications (SAN’s) when shipment has been made.

PSSC is able to supply ASN data for shipments to Amazon, Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and Barnes & Noble Distribution Centers. These are the main vendors pressing hard for ASN data.

In order to take advantage of this process publishers will need to supply in their order data files the Standard Address Number (SAN) for any given shipping location. This data must be received in a specific field location in the order data files sent to PSSC. The SAN number can reside in the 17th position in the Header file line, right after the PO#, see Import File layout at http://www.pssc.com/OrderImportSpecs.html.

Supplying PSSC with SAN numbers will allow the use PSSC’s ASN capability. Without a SAN imbedded in the data file PSSC will not be able to utilize the ASN process.

There are many reasons to take advantage of this process.  The ASN process gives every carton shipped a unique barcode (SSCC). When this barcode is scanned by the recipients receiving department it links to ASN data sent  that details the PO# of the shipment and the exact contents of the carton they have just scanned. This allows them to bring the inventory into their system without having to re-key the data and it is cross referenced to their own PO. This theoretically should cut down on errors they may introduce into their receiving process (and resultantly the credits they take claiming they didn’t receive something that was actually sent).

It will also create a much more solid track of accountability and make it harder for the vendors to claim they never received a shipment, which happens all too often.  PSSC hopes the use of ASN’s will incrementally improve the receiving and payment process on the vendors end and hopefully also reduce claims for credits on contested shipments.

The last bit of bewildering information to relay is that publishers also must supply PSSC with their own SAN. If they do not already have one, a SAN number can be obtained at a cost of $150 from: http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/san/application.asp  .