Everyone who sends a tax return to the IRS (business or personal) wonders, "How do I know the IRS received it?” Most taxpayers and tax preparers in 2009 used IRS e-file to file their taxes. During this process, they did not have to send a single scrap of paper to the Internal Revenue Service. In January of this year, the IRS was predicting the the total number of individual tax returns, both electronic and paper, to reach about 140 million in 2009. And it expects e-file returns to exceed last year’s record of nearly 90 million taxpayers.
Answers Systems has the similar expectations for claims we receive for Trade Spend Management on behalf of our manufacturer clients. Currently 75% of the billback claims we receive from distributors are loaded as “electronic data” using EclaimSM. Even better, we expect t
his ratio to exceed 80% in 2010. As further evidence of Answers Systems superior technology capabilities, Eclaim has become the pipeline to load electronic files for our claim processing and data acquisition services. Through our Eclaim technology, Answers Systems is supporting efforts to drive waste out of the foodservice supply chain. Eclaim provides savings in time and resources (paper, labor), and it increases claim accuracy to help prevent claim/rebate calculation errors.
One way to gain acceptance of the electronic data in the foodservice industry, is to explain how easy converting from paper to electronic can be for the contract claimant. Distributors especially, are sometimes hesitant about changing their current claim layout and developing alternative reporting file types and formats. They feel every manufacturer or trading partner will have different requirements and customizations. My answer to this concern is to use the GS1 EDI 867 standard document for
Contract & Rebate Management.
In 2006, the GS1 Foodservice Committee finalized these documents for billback and sales reporting so they are ready for implementation. This committee was a collaboration initiative with manufacturers, distributors and operators. As a participant on this multi-year effort, I saw firsthand how important it is to have a common language for all sides of the foodservice triangle.
I’ve found the distributors that use the EDI 867 for communicating their billbacks have been very satisfied with the specifications. By using this standard spec you will be able to:
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Document performance against a contract
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Know which transaction sets t should be included in your document
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Interpret standards for contract terminology
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Understand guidelines for implementation
Since I work with the distributors to make sure we have interpreted and translated every field attribute before doing parallel testing with production data, I can testify to the accuracy. Distributors have all been able to accommodate their trading partner’s requirements by combining both the Header invoice and Detail transaction data in the same file. Some distributors that populate back-end systems with GS1Global Trade Item Numbers have been able to make significant advancements to communicate this data as the UK GTIN 14-digit Data Structure in their 867-billback. If we can match this number with the contract item during claim settlement, it’s a win for all parties to the contract.
As a side note, if a distributor wants their first create a format that requires less EDI expertise in their first attempt, a Text-Delimited format can work well for an alternative in the interim. I’ve seen every possible file type in my role as Data Acquisition Liaison. Answers Systems has a complete staff of Business Intelligence experts who perform the set up and administer ongoing data load for electronic billback files that require this service so we have many options available to assist foodservice with Trade Spend Management.