An Advance Shipment Notice (ASN) is transmitted via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) from a supplier to let the receiving organization know that a shipment is coming. The ASN contains details including shipment date, time, and identification number; packing slip data; freight information; item detail including cumulative received quantities; purchase order number; and returnable container information.

Please note that ASNs come from external suppliers only. They cannot be used for internal sales orders sourced from your inventory and generated by internal requisitions.

Once an ASN is successfully validated, you can use it in the Receipts window to create receipts, reducing data entry time. (A validated ASN is one that contains no errors during data validation in the Receiving Open Interface.)

Suppliers can also send ASNs with billing information. These contain the same information as ASNs plus invoice and tax information. Once an ASN with billing information is validated in the receiving open interface and imported into Purchasing, an invoice for the shipment is created automatically.

A supplier creates an ASN based on the demand conveyed by the purchasing organization's Purchase Order, Planning Schedule, or Shipping Schedule. If Purchasing detects errors or discrepancies in the ASN at any time, from the time the ASN is sent to the time it is entered as received, an Application Advice, transmitted via EDI, is sent automatically to the supplier. The supplier can then send a corrected ASN.

You can view or cancel an accepted ASN as an intransit shipment in the Maintain Shipments window.