Functional AcknowledgmentsFunctional acknowledgments are the most commonly exchanged EDI documents. They verify that an EDI document has been received in good order. In this case, good order means that the document adhered to the EDI standard; it does not mean that you necessarily agree with the contents of the document. In ANSI X12, functional acknowledgments are referred to as 997s. In EDIFACT, they are referred to as CONTRL messages. When you send an EDI document, the recipient of that document should return an acknowledgment to you—usually within 24 hours. Likewise, when a trading partner sends you an EDI document, you should promptly respond with an acknowledgment. Liaison does this for you. So even though an acknowledgment is required for every EDI document you receive, you'll never need to create one. Functional acknowledgments are automatically generated and sent on your behalf by the Liaison Value Added Network whenever a new EDI document arrives destined for your Liaison Athena mailbox. They are not generated in Athena and, for this reason, acknowledgments returned to your trading partners are not directly visible in Athena. Acknowledgments sent to you by trading partners, on the other hand, are visible in Athena. They are treated and stored as any other received EDI document. Reconciling Sent Functional AcknowledgmentsEven though your sent functional acknowledgments are not available for viewing in Athena, there are several ways for you to track and reconcile them. As discussed in Document Chaining, acknowledgment data displays at the top of every received EDI document. In addition, the Documents Sent report, discussed in Generating Reports, displays all sent acknowledgments. No Document FeesIn Athena, acknowledgments are always free of charge. Liaison does not consider incoming or outgoing acknowledgments when calculating fees for your account or determining whether you are within the document limit defined by your Athena subscription level. |