GRUVE / CUSTOMER SUCCESS
A US food brand brought trading-partner EDI into NetSuite
Gruve built a custom NetSuite application for purchase orders, shipment notices, invoices, GS1 labels and retailer feedback, giving operations visibility into the documents behind each transaction.
Under 2 months
From first build to the first trading partner going live
About 2 seconds
Median time from inbound retailer purchase-order arrival to NetSuite sales-order creation
53,000+ labels
GS1 SSCC labels generated with valid check digits and no duplicates in the reported production dataset
1,000+ orders
Processed through the native EDI engine in its first five months
The challenge
Orders reached NetSuite but were vulnerable to compliance risk
The food brand used NetSuite to manage orders, fulfillment and invoicing. Its trading-partner maps, rules and EDI document history sat with a third-party middleware provider.
When a retailer rejected an advance ship notice or invoice, that feedback did not reach NetSuite. Operations could not see the rejection alongside the transaction or resolve it from the system they used every day. New mappings, retailer item numbers and store locations required changes through the middleware provider.
Retailer shipment requirements added another operational risk. Advance ship notices had to arrive on time, reflect the shipment and carry the required packaging and reference data. The team had no way to check those documents inside NetSuite before transmission, leaving it exposed to potential compliance chargebacks.
The approach
Gruve built the EDI application inside the ERP
Gruve moved the trading-partner maps, validation rules and document records into a custom NetSuite application. Boomi handles file transport over AS2 and SFTP. The EDI business logic sits in NetSuite.
Step 1
Connect the order-to-invoice flow.
Inbound purchase orders become NetSuite sales orders through a RESTlet. Acknowledgments, advance ship notices and invoices are generated from NetSuite transactions, with document headers and line details stored as ERP records.
Step 2
Build shipment notices and labels from shared data.
Advance ship notices are generated from item fulfillments, with shipment quantities checked against the purchase order and invoice. A Gruve-built labeling module generates pallet and carton SSCC identifiers using the client’s GS1 company prefix. Those identifiers also feed the ASN pack data.
Step 3
Check documents before transmission.
Partner-specific validation checks identifiers, bill-of-lading references, packaging data and totals. Documents that fail validation are held for correction. Gruve also ran the retailer’s end-to-end certification process for the purchase-order, ASN and invoice flow.
Step 4
Bring exceptions into the operating workflow.
Retailer rejection messages are captured in NetSuite and linked to the relevant ASN or invoice. An EDI dashboard brings documents, statuses and exceptions into one view. The retailer’s location feed updates store and distribution-center records automatically, and earlier transactions were enriched with EDI data to bring their history into the ERP.
The outcomes
Operations can take action based on real-time EDI records
Maps, validations, EDI documents and retailer feedback now sit in NetSuite, where operations can review and act on them. The legacy middleware has been retired from the order-to-invoice flow; Boomi remains the transport layer.
The first trading partner went live in under two months from first build, with both partners live in under five months. The engine processed more than 1,000 orders in its first five months, with a median of about two seconds from inbound retailer PO arrival to sales-order creation.
The labeling module generated more than 53,000 SSCC labels with valid check digits and no duplicates in the reported dataset.
Partner settings are held on customer records, providing a repeatable foundation for further onboarding through configuration and partner-specific handlers.
Technology
Oracle NetSuite
SuiteScript 2.x, SDF, RESTlets, Suitelets, Map/Reduce and custom records.
Boomi
AS2/SFTP transport.
ANSI X12
850, 855, 856, 810, 816, 824 and 864.
GS1
SSCC-18 and GTIN.
Bring EDI operations into NetSuite
For businesses running NetSuite with trading-partner logic held in external middleware, Gruve can assess the document flow, validation requirements and operational visibility needed for a native EDI application.
