Business Central EDI works through an EDI provider or integration, because Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central has no built-in EDI translator: the provider maps inbound documents such as the 850 purchase order into sales orders and turns posted shipments into outbound documents such as the 856 Advance Ship Notice. The inbound half is well-trodden. The hard half is the 856, because a retailer expects it to describe every pallet and carton, with an SSCC on each, and standard Business Central does not hold that data. This article explains EDI at a working level, what Business Central needs from a provider, and where license plates and integrated shipping supply the pallet, SSCC and tracking detail the ASN depends on.
What is EDI, and which documents does a Business Central trading partner exchange?
EDI is the exchange of standard business documents as structured electronic messages between trading partners, so a retailer’s purchasing system and your Business Central exchange orders without anyone retyping. In North America the standard is ANSI X12, where each document type is a numbered transaction set; in Europe and much of the rest of the world it is UN/EDIFACT, where the equivalents carry names such as ORDERS and DESADV.
The four transaction sets a Business Central distributor or manufacturer meets first, in the order they flow, are shown below. The X12 supply chain transaction flow places them in sequence.
| X12 set | Name | Direction | What it becomes in Business Central |
|---|---|---|---|
| 850 | Purchase Order | Inbound from customer | A sales order, created by the EDI integration |
| 855 | Purchase Order Acknowledgment | Outbound to customer | Confirmation of accepted lines, quantities and dates from the sales order |
| 856 | Ship Notice/Manifest (ASN) | Outbound to customer | A description of the posted shipment: pallets, cartons, contents, SSCCs, carrier and tracking |
| 810 | Invoice | Outbound to customer | The posted sales invoice |
The pattern is always the same: a Business Central document on one side, an X12 message on the other, and a mapping between them that somebody has to build and maintain.
Does Business Central have EDI built in?
No. Business Central exposes the documents (sales orders, posted shipments, posted invoices) through its pages and APIs, but it does not translate them to or from X12 or EDIFACT. Three components therefore sit in every working setup:
- An EDI provider or VAN, which holds the trading partner agreements, transmits the messages, and usually performs the translation.
- An integration into Business Central, either the provider’s own connector, a partner-built extension, or a middleware layer, which creates the sales order from the 850 and reads the posted shipment to build the 856.
- Data discipline inside Business Central, so that the fields the mapping needs (customer item cross-references, ship-to codes, units of measure, lot numbers) are populated the way the retailer expects.
Two existing Insight Works articles cover the first two components: an overview of EDI integration in Business Central and a technical treatment of integrating EDI into Business Central. This article concentrates on the third, the shipment data, because that is where EDI projects run late.
Why is the 856 ASN the hard part of Business Central EDI?
The 856 is hard because it describes the physical shipment, not the sales order, and standard Business Central records the order well and the shipment barely. X12 defines the 856 as a set that “can be used to list the contents of a shipment of goods as well as additional information relating to the shipment, such as order information, product description, physical characteristics, type of packaging, marking, carrier information, and configuration of goods within the transportation equipment,” per the X12 856 transaction set definition. Read that list against a posted sales shipment and the gaps are obvious.
A posted sales shipment holds the customer, ship-to, items, quantities and, if item tracking is on, lot or serial numbers, plus a Shipping Agent code and a typed Package Tracking No. It does not hold:
- How many pallets went out, or how many cartons were on each pallet.
- Which items and lots sat on which pallet or in which carton.
- The weight and dimensions of each handling unit.
- An SSCC for each pallet or carton, which the retailer will scan on arrival to match against the ASN.
- The carrier’s PRO number or a per-carton tracking number, unless a person keyed it.
The 856 most retailers require is hierarchical: shipment, then order, then pack (pallet or carton), then item. The pack level is exactly what standard Business Central does not model. An EDI provider cannot invent it, so the data has to come from the warehouse process or the shipping system.
Where does pallet data for the ASN come from?
Pallet and carton data comes from a license plate built in the warehouse, or from packages built in the shipping app, and the ASN mapping reads one of those. A license plate is an internal identifier for a pallet, tote or carton that already knows the items, quantities, lot or serial numbers and location inside it. When a picker builds a plate on a handheld, the pack level of the 856 exists as data before the shipment posts. The feature page on license plating for Business Central describes that build, including nested plates (a pallet containing cartons that are themselves plates), which maps directly onto the pallet-then-carton hierarchy in the ASN.
License Plating requires Warehouse Insight; it is an add-on to that mobile warehouse app, not a standalone product. On the EDI side, a separate TrueCommerce license plate integration reads the license plates related to a posted sales shipment and generates item detail, quantity, item tracking, package tracking number and package weight, on demand or automatically at posting. The knowledge base is direct about the boundary: the app “generates the required data, but you must employ the TrueCommerce methods for transmission, UCC labels, and other handling within the TrueCommerce system.”
A license plate number is an internal identifier that Business Central assigns from a number series. An SSCC is an externally licensed identifier minted from your own GS1 Company Prefix, and GS1 US describes it as “an 18-digit identifier assigned to a logistics unit, which includes any combination of trade items, such as cases, and pallets packaged together for transportation purposes,” on its SSCC reference page. No software can generate a valid SSCC for you without that prefix. License plates do not carry an SSCC by default; the knowledge base notes that the EDI application “almost always generates the SSCC after it has retrieved the data electronically,” and where it does not, a developer adds one through the TrueCommerce integration’s OnAfterGetPackageDetail event. The sample SSCC and GS1-128 label reports Insight Works ships as Dynamic Ship developer examples assume the SSCC already exists. The ASN then resolves the SSCC on the pallet to its contents.
Where do carrier and tracking data for the ASN come from?
Carrier and tracking data comes from integrated shipping, which writes the tracking or PRO number and package-level detail back to the Business Central shipment as the label is produced. Dynamic Ship rate shops across parcel, LTL and FTL carriers from the sales order or Warehouse Shipment, builds packages manually or automatically, verifies contents with a barcode-driven Package Worksheet, and writes the tracking number back to the document. Its EDI support, including the ASN (EDI 856), is built on that package-level detail, as the feature page on ASN and EDI shipping integration for Business Central describes. That page puts the division of labor plainly: “Your EDI vendor, whether TrueCommerce, SPS Commerce, Vantree, or another provider, takes that data and generates the ASN using its own transmission and UCC labeling methods.” It also notes that the SSCCs used in the ASN can be generated from Dynamic Ship license plate data, given your own GS1 prefix. Dynamic Ship’s license plate handling is built in, so it does not depend on the License Plating add-on; where both are present, a license plate confirmed for shipping hands off to Dynamic Ship for the carrier label, packing slip and bill of lading.
Dynamic Ship reaches carriers through 26 pluggable connectors, one of which is Amazon Vendor Direct Fulfillment for orders Amazon routes to you as a vendor. For other retail programs, the EDI provider carries the ASN while Dynamic Ship supplies the package and carrier data that goes into it.
A complete ASN flow in Business Central looks like this:
- The EDI integration creates the sales order from the 850 and sends the 855.
- The warehouse picks. With Warehouse Insight and License Plating, the picker builds pallets and cartons as license plates on the handheld; without it, packages are built in Dynamic Ship at the packing bench.
- Dynamic Ship validates the address, requests rates, books the carrier, prints labels and any bill of lading, and writes tracking numbers to the shipment.
- The shipment posts. Package-level detail, item tracking, weights and tracking numbers are now on or linked to the posted sales shipment.
- The EDI integration (or the TrueCommerce license plate integration) reads that detail, applies the SSCCs, and transmits the 856. The 810 follows from the posted invoice.
A first-hand configuration detail: retailers validate the ASN by scanning the SSCC label on the pallet, so the label must be printed from the same data the 856 was built from. Labels from a spreadsheet and an ASN from Business Central is a recipe for chargebacks.
What should you settle before an EDI project touches shipping?
Settle data ownership before mapping begins, because a mapping cannot fix missing data:
- Who owns the GS1 Company Prefix and the SSCC range? Your company must license the prefix from GS1; the EDI provider and Insight Works can only use it.
- Where is the pack level built? On the handheld during the pick (License Plating with Warehouse Insight) or at the packing station (Dynamic Ship packages). Either works; pick one and train it.
- Which system prints the pallet label? It must be the system that holds the SSCC and the contents the ASN will report.
- Which EDI provider integration reads the shipment? Confirm it consumes package-level detail, not just posted shipment lines.
Frequently asked questions about Business Central EDI
Does it automate ASNs for EDI customers?
The ASN is generated and transmitted by your EDI provider integration. Dynamic Ship and License Plating supply the package, SSCC, weight and tracking data the 856 needs, so the ASN can be built from real shipment detail instead of typed in.
To send an ASN with SSCC, what do we need?
Your own GS1 Company Prefix to mint SSCCs, a way to build pallets or cartons as data (License Plating on Warehouse Insight, or Dynamic Ship packages), an SSCC label printed from that data, and an EDI provider integration that reads the package-level detail and transmits the 856.
Does Business Central have EDI built in?
No. Business Central provides the sales order, posted shipment and posted invoice; an EDI provider or integration performs the translation and transmission.
Does License Plating generate SSCC numbers?
No. License plates are internal identifiers and do not carry an SSCC by default. The EDI application usually generates the SSCC from the shipment data it retrieves; where it does not, the TrueCommerce integration exposes an event where an SSCC from your own GS1 range can be added, and the sample SSCC label reports assume the SSCC already exists.
Do I need License Plating to send an ASN?
Not necessarily. Dynamic Ship builds package-level detail on its own, and its license plate handling is built in. License Plating adds pallet build during the handheld pick and requires Warehouse Insight.