How orders arrive
B2B StorefrontThey’ll log in to your Turis storefront and order themselves VisionThey’ll always email a PDF or spreadsheet Turnkey EDITheir procurement team mandates EDIIncluded with every plan
Tippy AIAsk Turis to do things in plain language PulseEmails triggered by buying behaviour ReportsPlain-English questions about your dataFor sales teams, per seat
Orbit NewWhich accounts to work today€49/seat/mo, minimum 3 seats. Runs alongside a channel plan rather than on its own.
Turnkey EDI For the retailers whose procurement system decides
We build the connection, run the retailer’s test cycle, and their orders land in the same place as every other order you take. No translator contract, no middleware, no network contract, no six-month project.
Bring their onboarding pack if you have one — we’ll read it on the call.
Start here
One day an email arrives from a buyer at a large retailer — a supermarket group, a department store, a national chain. It says something close to: we’re moving our suppliers onto EDI, you’ll need to be connected by Q1, here’s our supplier onboarding pack. Attached is a forty-page document written for someone who already knows what all of it means.
EDI, or electronic data interchange, is a way for two companies’ computer systems to exchange orders as structured files instead of as emails between two people. The retailer’s system produces the order as a file, the file travels over a private network, and it arrives at your end already formatted — customer, delivery date, product codes, quantities, prices. Nobody retypes anything at either end.
A national retailer places thousands of orders a week across hundreds of suppliers. They cannot have people keying those in, and they will not accept the error rate that comes with it. Once a retailer has committed to EDI it stops being a preference and becomes a condition of supply.
Being “on EDI” is not one thing. The retailer expects your side to do four things automatically, in this order.
And before any of it goes live, they test you. The retailer sends sample orders, checks what you send back against their specification, and only switches you on once you pass.
Most of this page assumes a retailer you already supply. The other case matters more, and nobody puts it on a website: a great many large retailers now require EDI of any supplier they list. If you cannot accept their orders, the conversation about getting your line into their stores does not reach a second meeting — whatever the buyer thought of the product.
So this is not only a cost of keeping the customers you have. For a brand trying to move up into national retail, it is closer to the price of being allowed to bid.
A retailer that has moved to EDI will not email you a purchase order as a favour. Their buyer often cannot — the order only exists inside their system. In practice the choice is to connect or to stop being a supplier, which is why “we need you on EDI by Q1” reads as a deadline rather than a request.
You do not need to learn EDI. You need someone to build and run the connection, pass the retailer’s test cycle, and keep it working when the retailer changes something. That is what Turnkey EDI is.
Already know all this? Skip to how the connection works ↓
Why this normally costs a fortune
Ask what it takes to get on EDI the traditional way and you get four separate things to buy, from four separate vendors, that break independently.
A translator
Software that converts the retailer’s file format into something your system can read.
Middleware
A layer that moves the translated files into your ERP — the system holding your stock, prices and invoices.
A network contract
A VAN, the private network EDI orders travel over, billed per document or per kilocharacter.
An implementation project
Consultants mapping fields between the retailer’s specification and your ERP, typically over several months.
That is also why EDI has a reputation as something only large distributors do. The fixed cost is roughly the same whether you connect one retailer or twenty, so with one retailer it looks absurd — and one retailer is the situation almost every brand is actually in.
If you already run Turis there is a pipeline: an order arrives, gets checked against your catalogue and that customer’s agreed prices, and goes to your ERP. A buyer signing in to your storefront uses that pipeline. A PDF read by Vision uses that pipeline. An EDI order from a retailer uses the same one. The translator, the network connection and the mapping are ours to run, and what reaches your team is an order that looks like every other order.
Which is why it is priced per retail partner rather than as a platform. You are not buying an EDI system — you are buying the two or three retailer connections you actually need, on infrastructure that is already carrying your other orders.
How the connection works
The same four obligations from further up this page, with each one happening. Every document has a plain name and a code — the code is what the retailer’s specification will call it, and you never have to use it.
Their order arrives
purchase order — 850 in North America, ORDERS in Europe
The retailer’s system produces the order and sends it. We collect it, translate it, and check it against your catalogue and that customer’s agreed prices. It appears in Turis as an order like any other.
We confirm receipt, automatically
receipt confirmation — 997, or CONTRL in Europe
Retailers require a technical acknowledgement saying the file arrived and could be read. It goes back without anyone touching it. Missing these is one of the most common reasons a supplier gets flagged in a retailer’s compliance report — and it is invisible until it is a problem.
You ship, and we tell them what’s coming
shipping notice — 856, or DESADV in Europe
When the order is dispatched we generate the notice: what is on the truck, how it is packed, when it arrives. Their warehouse books goods in against it rather than against a paper docket.
We send the invoice
invoice — 810, or INVOIC in Europe
Matched to the order and the shipment. This is the document that decides whether you are paid on time, because the retailer’s system reconciles all three automatically and holds anything that does not line up.
If your retailer’s specification asks for something not listed here, send us the onboarding pack. We would rather read it and tell you than have you find out in week six.
Before we start
Four things, and none of them are EDI knowledge. Written so you can forward this section to whoever looks after your ERP without explaining it first.
The retailer orders using their own product codes, or using GTIN/EAN barcodes. We map their codes to yours during setup, but the mapping has to be based on a list that is correct. This is the single most common cause of delay, and it is nearly always fixable before the project starts rather than during it.
Turis needs to read stock and pricing, and to write orders back. A native connection to Microsoft Business Central, SAP, Infor M3, Visma Net, Rackbeat or Uniconta is already built. Failing that, an API your ERP exposes, or a scheduled file exchange if the system is older and has no API.
An EDI order arrives with the retailer’s expected price on it. We check theirs against yours and hold a mismatch rather than accepting it silently. That check only works if the agreed price list is in the system.
Their specification tells us which documents they want, in which format, over which transport. The named contact is who runs the test cycle with us. If you don’t have one, ask your buyer — every large retailer has an EDI or supplier-onboarding team, and they are usually responsive, because getting you connected is their target too.
What we don’t need
Your own EDI software. A VAN contract in your name. A project manager on your side. Or anyone on your team who understands EDI — if you did, you would not be reading this page.
The part nobody publishes
Every EDI page describes the working state and stops. Here is the other one, because it is what you will actually be managing — and because every event below is normal in EDI rather than a sign something is broken.
An order that doesn’t match your data stops.
A product code we can’t map, a quantity below your minimum order, or a price on their order that differs from your agreed price list — the order is held with the specific line flagged, and someone on your side approves, corrects or rejects it. A mismatched price never syncs to your ERP unchallenged. Silently accepting the retailer’s price is how suppliers discover a margin problem a quarter later.
Their system tests every incoming document against their specification and rejects what fails — an invoice that doesn’t reconcile to the shipment, a shipping notice missing a pallet identifier. The rejection comes back as a file. We read it, translate the reason into a plain sentence, and raise it with the document and the field named.
Two of your products carry the retailer’s same code, or the retailer sends a code that was retired. The order is held, we are alerted at the same moment you are, and we fix the mapping rather than asking you to.
If the retailer’s system or the network is unavailable, documents queue and resend rather than failing. Nothing is discarded at either end, and an order that was sent stays sent.
They will, eventually
A retailer adds a document type, changes a required field, moves to a new version of their specification, or acquires another retailer and merges the two. Suppliers usually find out by receiving a rejection, or a circular with a deadline on it.
We do the work.
Rebuilding a mapping, adding a field, moving to a new version of the retailer’s specification, and re-running their test cycle where they require one — that is our side of the arrangement, not a task that comes back to you.
And it costs nothing extra.
Changes to a live connection are covered by the monthly fee — new fields, revised mappings, a new version of the retailer’s specification, and the re-test cycle that follows. There is no change-request rate, no hourly billing, and no line in the contract where a retailer’s decision becomes an invoice on your side.
Engineers who have already built against this retailer’s specification, doing the mapping work as part of setup and maintaining it afterwards. You do not get a mapping tool to learn, and you are not billed for hours.
Retailers usually announce specification changes in advance, and we act on the announcement rather than on the first rejection. Where a change arrives with no notice, the first failed document is the alert — and what happens then is the section above.
Already in the catalogue
Where a retailer is already in our EDI partner catalogue, the mapping work starts from something proven rather than from a blank sheet — which shows up in the setup charge and in how fast their certification cycle goes.
Your retailer isn’t on the list?
That’s the normal case — most of the connections we build are to a retailer we haven’t published. It affects the setup charge. Whether it can be done isn’t in question. Send us the onboarding pack and we’ll tell you what’s involved on the first call.
Get a quote for your retailerWhat it costs
From €200/mo per retail partner, plus a setup charge per partner. One retailer connected is one connection; two retailers is two. You are not buying a platform licence sized for twenty and then paying per connection on top — the connection is the product, which is what makes a single retailer worth doing at all.
The connection, monthly
The live connection to that retailer, the network it runs over, and everything that keeps it working. Changes to a live connection are covered by the monthly fee — new fields, revised mappings, a new version of the retailer’s specification, and the re-test cycle that follows.
Setting it up, once per partner
Registering your GLN — the ID number a retail chain uses to identify your business in their system — building and testing the mapping between their product codes and yours, and running the retailer’s certification cycle with them until you pass it.
More than one retailer
Quoted together rather than multiplied. Most brands connect a second retailer within a year of the first, and it is both cheaper and faster than the first — your product and price data is already mapped by then.
Always quoted in writing, per retailer, before you commit to anything — bring the retailer and we will price that retailer. See how the three channels price →
Someone has already done this
To Øl, the Copenhagen craft brewery, runs B2B Storefront for the accounts that order themselves, Vision for the ones that email, and Turnkey EDI for the retailers that mandate it — all landing in SAP Business One.
Before Turis, their reps spent about half of each day keying orders into SAP Business One. The dedicated EDI providers they looked at carried a high upfront cost that was difficult to justify against a small number of retailer connections — which is the arithmetic this page exists to change.
To Øl reports these figures — Eric Gilham, Chief Digital Officer. They are their own account of the result rather than something we measured. Read the full story →
Before you ask us
If yours isn’t here, thirty minutes with the retailer’s onboarding pack in front of us answers it faster than another page will.
Often, yes — and the part neither of us controls is the retailer’s own certification queue, which is usually the longest single wait. Bring the deadline and the retailer’s onboarding pack to the first call and we will tell you honestly whether it is reachable, including if it is not.
More so. A great many large retailers require EDI of any supplier they list, so being unable to accept their orders can end the conversation before the buyer has finished considering the product. Getting connected first turns it from a reason to say no into a box already ticked — and a connection can be built before you have won the listing.
No. You need to know which retailers you sell to and what your product data looks like. The specification, the mapping and the test cycle are ours.
That is the case this is priced for. You buy one connection, from €200/mo per retail partner plus its setup, rather than a platform licence sized for twenty. If a single retailer is a meaningful share of your revenue, the arithmetic is usually not close — and we will put a real number on your retailer on the first call.
No. Flat per retail partner per month, whatever the volume goes through that connection. No per-kilocharacter fee either, which is how traditional network contracts bill.
We do. A VAN is the private network EDI orders travel over, and normally the supplier signs for one themselves. You do not sign a network agreement and there is no per-document network charge on your side.
We rebuild the mapping and re-run their test cycle, and it is covered by the monthly fee. There is no change-request rate.
It stops as an exception with the line flagged, and someone on your side decides. It does not reach your ERP as an accepted order — silently accepting the retailer’s price is how a margin problem gets found a quarter late.
No. EDI can be bought on its own. Most brands who buy it already run one of the others, because the retailers mandating EDI are rarely the whole customer base — but it is not a requirement.
Then we look at what it can expose — an API, or a scheduled file exchange. On the first call we will tell you whether yours is straightforward, a project, or a bad fit. See the integrations →
If your ERP has one and it is live, you may not need this. The difference is who does the mapping and who handles the retailer when the specification changes — an ERP module gives you the capability and leaves the work with you or your ERP partner. Worth a call rather than a page.
| They’ll log in to your Turis storefront and order themselves | B2B Storefront | from €299/mo |
|---|---|---|
| They’ll always email a PDF or spreadsheet | Vision | from €199/mo |
| Their procurement team mandates EDI | Turnkey EDI | from €200/mo per partner |
Tippy AI, Pulse and Reports included with every plan. No commission on your sales.
Send us a real purchase order — a messy one, ideally — and we’ll show you what Turis does with it on the call.
Live product, your order flow, no slide deck. · No commission on your sales, ever.
Prices and terms on this page reviewed