EDI 856 (ASN): What an Advance Ship Notice Is
Jul 17, 2026
Jul 17, 2026
Convert a purchase order to Excel, CSV, or JSON
Submit your purchase orders
Drop documents here, or click to file
Up to 50 files per batch
Uploading...
An EDI 856, called an Advance Ship Notice or ASN, is an electronic document a supplier sends after a shipment leaves but before it arrives, telling the buyer exactly what is on the truck and how it is packed. It maps the shipment down to the carton and item level so the receiving dock can scan pallets in against the notice instead of counting everything by hand.
Last updated July 2026.
The 856 is one of the most demanding documents in retail and manufacturing EDI, and it is where a large share of vendor chargebacks come from. Get the timing or the packaging hierarchy wrong and a compliant-looking shipment still gets penalized. This guide covers what the ASN contains, how its structure works, when to send it, and why big-box retailers treat it as a hard requirement rather than a courtesy.
The EDI 856 is the ANSI ASC X12 transaction set named Ship Notice/Manifest. Suppliers use it to give the buyer advance, itemized detail about a shipment: what was shipped, how many, against which purchase order, how it is packed, which carrier is carrying it, and when it should arrive. Because it is sent ahead of delivery, receiving teams can pre-stage labor and dock doors and then confirm the load by scanning a single carton label instead of opening and counting every box.
The ASN sits at a specific point in the electronic order chain. The buyer sends an EDI 850 purchase order, the supplier returns an 855 acknowledgment, the 856 goes out when the goods ship, and an 810 invoice follows for payment. Each one references the same PO number so the buyer's system can tie the paperwork to the physical goods.
What makes the 856 harder than most EDI documents is its hierarchy. Instead of a flat list, it uses nested HL (hierarchical level) loops that mirror how the shipment is physically packed. The most common structure runs shipment, then order, then pack, then item.
| HL level code | What it represents | Typical data |
|---|---|---|
| S (Shipment) | The whole shipment on the truck | Ship date, carrier, BOL, ship-from and ship-to |
| O (Order) | One purchase order inside the shipment | PO number, PO date |
| P (Pack) | A carton or pallet | SSCC-18 label, carton weight and count |
| I (Item) | A product line inside the carton | UPC or part number, quantity shipped |
Each HL segment carries its own sequence number and points back to its parent loop, which is how the receiver reconstructs the exact tree of shipment to order to carton to item. Get the parent references wrong and the buyer cannot tell which items are in which box, which defeats the entire purpose of the notice.
Beyond the hierarchy, a complete ASN carries the shipment identifiers and logistics data the receiver needs to plan and reconcile. The core segments include the BSN (the beginning segment with the shipment ID and date), TD1 and TD5 (carrier and routing detail), REF (reference numbers such as the bill of lading), DTM (dates), LIN and SN1 (item identification and shipped quantity), and MAN, which carries the carton label number.
The MAN segment matters more than any other for retail compliance. It holds the SSCC-18, the 18-digit Serial Shipping Container Code printed as a GS1-128 barcode on the outside of each carton or pallet. When the SSCC in the ASN matches the barcode the receiver scans on the dock, the whole carton receives in one scan. When it does not match, the shipment falls out for manual handling.
The ASN must be transmitted after the goods physically ship but before they arrive at the buyer's dock, and most trading partners set a tight window, often within an hour of the truck leaving. That timing is the whole point: an advance notice that lands after the shipment is not advance notice, and many retailers reject or penalize a late ASN automatically. Sending it too early is also a problem, because if the actual load differs from what was transmitted, the counts will not reconcile at receiving.
Large retailers like Walmart, Target, and Amazon mandate the 856 because their receiving model depends on it. Scan-and-receive against an accurate ASN lets a distribution center take in a trailer in minutes and push inventory live the moment it arrives. That speed only works if the data is right, so these programs back the requirement with chargebacks.
Common ASN violations that trigger a deduction include transmitting the 856 after the shipment already arrived, a missing or mismatched SSCC in the MAN segment, item quantities in the ASN that do not match what is physically in the carton, and a PO number that is not open in the retailer's system. Penalties commonly run from a few dollars per carton to a percentage of the invoice, and for a high-volume vendor they add up fast. The ASN also feeds the receiving record, so an accurate one flows straight into the goods receipt and makes the downstream 3-way match clean instead of an exception queue.
Not every vendor is EDI capable. Smaller suppliers often send a packing list or ship notice as a PDF or an emailed document instead of an 856, which leaves the buyer to key that shipment data in by hand before it can be matched. The efficient path there is to turn those documents into structured data automatically, so a PDF ship notice or purchase order becomes the same clean, line-level fields an EDI feed would have produced. That keeps non-EDI vendors from becoming the slow lane in receiving, and it is the same problem this tool solves for purchase orders: upload a PO above and the header and line items come back as Excel, CSV, or JSON ready to reconcile.
An EDI 850 is the purchase order the buyer sends to place an order. An EDI 856 is the advance ship notice the supplier sends back once those goods ship, detailing what is on the way and how it is packed. The 850 starts the transaction; the 856 reports the physical shipment against it.
An ASN should be transmitted after the shipment physically leaves the supplier but before it reaches the buyer, usually within a short window such as one hour of the truck departing. Sending it after arrival defeats its purpose and, with most large retailers, triggers an automatic chargeback for a late ASN.
An SSCC is a Serial Shipping Container Code, an 18-digit number that uniquely identifies a single carton or pallet. It is printed as a GS1-128 barcode on the shipping label and carried in the ASN's MAN segment, so scanning the label lets the receiver match the physical carton to the electronic notice in one step.
They carry similar information, but an ASN is the electronic, structured version sent by EDI ahead of delivery, while a packing slip is the paper document inside or on the box. Retailers that mandate the 856 need the electronic advance notice specifically, because their automated receiving cannot scan a paper slip into the system before the truck arrives.
The most common causes are a late ASN sent after the goods arrived, a missing or mismatched SSCC carton label, quantities in the notice that do not match the physical contents, and a referenced PO that is not open in the retailer's system. Each breaks the retailer's scan-and-receive flow, which is why the deduction is automatic.
Z tej samej rodziny narzędzi