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SPS Commerce Unveils Improved EDI Service for Global Supply Chains

Outsourced Service Now Enables Remote Factories to Receive Packing Instructions Online, and Print and Affix Barcode Labels Onsite for Faster and Accurate Shipping

Minneapolis, Minn., Oct. 29, 2007 - SPS Commerce, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), has unveiled the latest update to its web-based B2B integration service. The enhancements are immediately accessible by all users of its multi-tenant system, and focus on easing the exchange of information with third party or remote factories and warehouses. Based on packing rules defined by the supplier, these locations can receive accurate packing and shipping instructions online, print and affix accurate barcode labels onsite and send a completed shipping notice on behalf of the vendor to the retailer. By enabling these tasks to be performed at the manufacturing site, instead of at its offices across the country or the world, vendors can eliminate days or weeks from their current supply chain cycles.

"Throughout our visits to our customers' manufacturing facilities in Asia, we have heard and seen the difficulties in enabling these very remote sites to perform simple, but important, supply chain tasks onsite," commented Archie Black, president and CEO of SPS Commerce. "After manufacturing the goods, days are often wasted in the supply chain waiting on shipping instructions and labels that must be mailed from the sourcing company or vendor to the factory. And, once packed, the items continue to wait to be shipped as final shipping information must be sent back to the same offices to complete the Advance Ship Notice. By placing the ability to perform these tasks closer to where the task occurs days can be eliminated from the cycle. With this new upgrade to our multi-tenant service, all of our customers can immediately offer this capability within their global supply chain."

SPS Commerce's recent upgrades for the global supply chain include:

• Auto-Complete. SPS has expanded its auto-complete capabilities to eliminate even more keystrokes when using its web-based EDI service. Users can now complete multiple Advance Ship Notices (ASNs) or Invoices for standard, cross dock or ship to store purchase orders with a single click. WebForms also offers the option to create single or multiple ASNs for a single order. The time savings is quickly apparent to international users. While they may only receive a few EDI documents, each order is for a large quantity -- often multiple containers of similar items. After producing the items, these sites must print and affix anywhere from two to 800 or more labels on boxes sorted in accordance with the shipping rules associated with the order. These rules govern how many items per box, how they are sorted (by size, color, etc.), and how partial boxes are managed. Based on the information entered into SPS' online service to complete the ASN, the system can automatically print the accurate number of labels required for the entire shipment in just minutes. The result is an easier packing process, and more accurately labeled shipments arriving at the port.
• Item Repository. This new feature allows users to reduce data entry and build the packing rules, used by Auto-Complete, for any remote facility. This capability is designed to give added flexibility and stores attributes, such as packing instructions related to specific items. In addition, the repository can help users to reconcile when internal item numbers for the same product differs from one used in externally in Purchase Orders and the like. For example, if internally the item is referred to as #12345, but on the Purchase Order to a specific customer it is #A12345, the item repository will link these two numbers as one and associate any attributes to both.
• Localization. SPS Commerce continues to localize its web-based EDI service to make its use easier for native or non-English speakers worldwide.

The above enhancements, and many others, are newly available to its more than 10,000 subscribers to its outsourced EDI services.