What is the best standard for exchanging business documents (invoices, software, etc.)?

Question

If I need to implement sending and receiving business documents from system to system (invoices, software, money transfer tips, etc.), which standard would you recommend for better interaction and why? It may be XML or otherwise.

Answer 1

I would look (in that order):

• Industry formats. Always your best bet if you have a homogeneous trading group.
• cXML or XCBL if you want an XML solution with an established standard.
• X12, if you have unlimited time, money and willing partners.
• custom XML only if you have requirements beyond the standard or such a small amount of data to transmit that the standard greatly inflates your documents.

This, of course, all depends on the problem area. I would think about these issues:

• Do you work in an industry with a specific format or regulatory requirements? For example, are there details such as the chemical composition of the gas you order? Are there hazardous materials requiring special orders or handling?
• Does your industry have a specific format or do you need a common one? Chem / Gas, Retail, Big Oil, Airlines, Financial Services and many others already have formats, and sometimes networks.
• Do you work with corporate buyers who have purchase requisitions? If so, I would look at cXML or XCBL, which handles the PunchOut standard, which allows you to purchase systems for ordering from online catalogs.
• What is the sophistication of your partners? EDI is old and powerful, but very hard to understand. People new to the process are more comfortable with XML-based formats.
• What is your market position? Can you manage the standard for your partners or will they dictate the format for you? In this case, you will need to adopt several standards? Who will translate between them?

Answer 2

UBL (Universal Business Language) is the latest attempt to do this, managed by OASIS. The problem is that the holy grail of business document interaction is actually far, if realistic at all. That's why there are products like Biztalk. The main goal of Biztalk is to take a document in one partner format and convert it to your format or vice versa.

Even huge standards such as ANSI X12 and Edifact were problematic, because even when two partners exchanged documents according to an agreed standard, there were usually enough differences in how the documents were used, which required special coding to process them.

My suggestion is to expose a simple and straightforward XML format that very closely matches your business needs and allows your partners to use any method that they currently use with other partners to process your document. Attempting to follow an industry standard will be much more effective and likely to bring little benefit.

Answer 3

The standard is X12. This is pretty much the case. See the EDI Wikipedia Page.

Answer 4

There is an ebXML standard that covers not only document formats, but also processes between business objects.

Answer 5

There are various standards for this: SWIFT - TSU Bolereo Twist

However, none of the standards has been fully accepted / accepted by the industry, and therefore they will not interfere. Another methodology uses a document flow control system in which you scan and store all documents as images and create a workflow around sending and receiving this data.

Answer 6

PDF - everyone has their own cross-platform platform, and it can process any type of document. Not good if you want to edit it though.