The EDI 850 is the retailer's purchase order, sent electronically. In apparel it carries far more than a list of items: size runs, prepack ratios, store-level splits and ship windows, and every one of them has to flow through to your ship notice and invoice.
The EDI 850 is the X12 purchase order transaction set. A retailer sends it to a supplier to order goods, stating what it wants, how many, at what cost, when, and where they should be delivered.
It starts the order-to-cash cycle. Everything after it, the acknowledgement, the ship notice and the invoice, has to agree with it. Most errors that surface weeks later as deductions began as an 850 that was read or entered incorrectly.
The header carries the order-level details, then one PO1 line per item, with optional detail for prepacks and store splits underneath each line.
| Segment | Name | What it carries in an apparel order |
|---|---|---|
| BEG | Beginning segment for purchase order | Purpose, PO type, PO number and PO date |
| CUR | Currency | Currency of the order |
| REF | Reference identification | Department number, vendor number and other references |
| FOB | Shipment method of payment | Who pays freight |
| ITD | Terms of sale | Payment terms and any discount |
| DTM | Date and time | Ship-not-before, ship-no-later and cancel-after dates |
| TD5 | Carrier details | Routing or carrier instructions, where the retailer sets them |
| N1 | Name | Buyer, bill-to, ship-to distribution centre and store numbers |
| PO1 | Baseline item data | Quantity, unit of measure, unit cost, and item identifiers such as UPC, vendor style, colour and size |
| PID | Product description | Item description text |
| PO4 | Item physical details | Pack size and inner pack, including prepack quantities |
| SLN | Subline item detail | The component sizes or colours inside a prepack |
| SDQ | Destination quantity | How the quantity splits across stores or distribution centres |
| CTT | Transaction totals | Number of line items, used as a control check |
Which segments a retailer sends, and how it uses them, is set by its 850 implementation guide. Map to the guide, not to the X12 standard alone.
The PO type in the BEG segment changes how an order should be handled. Common codes include SA for a stand-alone order, DS for a drop ship order, BK for a blanket order, and RL for a release against a blanket. A drop ship 850 usually means shipping to the retailer's end customer, with different labels, packing slips and timing rules from a wholesale order.
Each size and colour is its own line or identifier. The 850 may identify items by UPC, by vendor style with colour and size codes, or both. Your system has to resolve every one to the right SKU automatically, or someone ends up keying size runs by hand.
When a retailer orders a prepack, the 850 can express it as one prepack item with a pack quantity, or break it into component sizes through SLN segments. Your system needs to know which, because it decides how you pick, pack, label and ship.
A single 850 can ask you to ship to one distribution centre but pack by store, with the breakdown carried in SDQ segments. That allocation has to carry through to the mark-for store on every carton and in the 856.
The DTM segments set when you may ship and when the retailer can cancel. Loading these into your system as hard dates, rather than reading them off a printout, is what stops early and late shipment chargebacks.
Retailers amend orders with the 860. If changes are re-keyed by hand, or missed, you ship to the original order and get charged for the difference.
The fix is the same in nearly every case: the 850 should land in your system without anyone retyping it, and every downstream document should be built from it.
850 is the X12 transaction set number for a purchase order. Every EDI document type has a number: 855 is the purchase order acknowledgement, 856 the advance ship notice and 810 the invoice.
The 850 is the retailer's order. The 855 is your response confirming what you accept, change or reject. Some retailers require an 855 for every 850, and some do not use it at all.
The 850 creates the order. The 860 changes it after it was sent, whether quantities, dates, items or ship-to locations.
Yes. You need an EDI connection, either built into your ERP or through a third-party provider, plus a mapping to the retailer's 850 implementation guide. The goal is for the order to land in your system without anyone retyping it.
How to report what shipped, carton by carton, without triggering receiving chargebacks.
Read the guideHow the invoice reconciles against the order and ship notice, and why it short-pays when it does not.
Read the guideWhere each major retailer keeps its vendor portal, routing guide and EDI requirements.
Open the directoryBuilt-in EDI or a third-party provider, what retailers require, and what it really costs.
Read the guideEvery X12 document an apparel brand is likely to see, what it does and who sends it.
See the listWe map how orders arrive, where they get retyped, and what it takes to get every 850 into your system untouched. If your order flow is already clean, we will tell you that.
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