About ANSI X.12

History

In 1979, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) chartered the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 to develop uniform standards for inter-industry electronic exchange of business transactions (Electronic Data Interchange, EDI).

ANSI X12 (or just short X12) was originally conceived to support companies across different industry sectors in North America. However actually companies worldwide are using X12 EDI standards in daily business transactions. ASC X12 also contributes to UN/EDIFACT messages that are used widely outside of the United States.

The official X12 website can be found here.

 

Subcommitees

The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) is actually divided in following Subcommittees:

X12C - Communications & Controls
X12F - Finance
X12I - Transportation
X12J - Technical Assessment
X12M - Supply Chain
X12N - Insurance

 

X12 File Structure

In general a X12 file is structured like this:

  +----- Interchange Control Header    ISA     Mandatory
  | +--- Functional Group Header       GS      Conditional
  | | +- Transaction Set Header        ST      Mandatory
  | | |  Transaction Data                      As required
  | | +- Transaction Set Trailer       SE      Mandatory
  | +--- Functional Group Trailer      GE      Conditional
  +----- Interchange Control Trailer   IEA     Mandatory

 

X12 Delimiters

X12 is using the following delimeters:

Segment delimiter        ~     tilde        Hex: 0x7E
Element delimiter        *     asterisk     Hex: 0x2A
Subelement delimiter     :     colon        Hex: 0x3A

 

 

Transaction Sets

For each of the above mentioned Subcommittees there are defined Transaction Sets available. Actually there are more than 300 Transaction Sets defined for different business processes.

 

The Transaction Set is composed of logically related pieces of information grouped into units called Segments. For example, one Segment used in the Transaction Set might convey the address. A Transaction Set may contain multiple Segments. For example, the Address Segment might be used repeatedly to convey multiple sets of address information.

 

The X12 standard defines the sequence of segments in the Transaction Set and also the sequence of elements within each segment. The relationship between segments and elements can be compared to the relationship between records and fields in a database environment.

 

Each Transaction Set contains:

  • Transaction Set header (designated ST)

  • Transaction Set trailer (designated SE)

  • Single message, enveloped within the header and trailer

 

A Transaction Set has a three-digit code, a text title, and a two-letter code, for example: 850, Purchase Orders, PO.

 

Find here a complete list of ANSI X.12 Transaction Sets with their Transaction Set ID (3 digits), Function Group Code (2 digits), Description, Subcommittee and Category.

 

Example for 850 Purchase Order

The following data is a very simple example of an 850 Purchase Order:

ST*850*1~                                  Transaction Set Header
BEG*00*NE*PO123456**20171129~              Beginning Segment for Purchase Order
REF*CR*ABC~                                Reference Identification
DTM*074*20171201~                          Date/Time Reference
N1*BY**15*1234567890123~                   Name (Buyer)
N1*SE**15*9876543210987~                   Name (Seller)
N1*ST**15*4567890123456~                   Name (Ship To)
PO1*1*10*EA*9.99*PE*EN*4123456789012~      Line Item with quantity, price, GTIN
CTT*1*10~                                  Transaction Totals
SE*10*1~                                   Transaction Set Trailer

 

 

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