EDI 215 Motor Carrier Pick-up Manifest Guide

The EDI 215 is the shipper's list of everything going on the truck at one pickup. When a carrier's driver collects ten or twenty shipments from your dock in one stop, someone has to tell the carrier what each one is, where it is going and who pays. The 215 does that in one document, shipment by shipment and package by package, so the carrier can enter the freight into its system without keying paper bills of lading.

This guide covers what the 215 carries and what it is not for, every segment you will map, a live three-shipment example, how it compares to the 204, 211 and 212, and the mistakes that cause billing and delivery problems.

What Is an EDI 215?

An EDI 215 is the Motor Carrier Pick-up Manifest transaction set defined by ASC X12, which allows shippers, or other parties, to provide a motor carrier with a manifest of all of the shipments tendered to that carrier. It travels in functional group UP (the GS01 value).

The standard is unusually explicit about what the 215 is not. Its purpose statement says it is not to be used to give the carrier a load tender, a legal bill of lading, a pick-up notification or appointment scheduling. Those jobs belong to other documents: the 204 load tender and the 211 bill of lading among them.

Authoritative references for 215 work:

• The X12 transaction set catalog defines the 215 and its loops, and Stedi's X12 004010 reference for the 215 shows every segment and element by release
• The National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) issues the SCAC in the BLR segment that names the carrier receiving the manifest
• The carrier's own 215 guide sets which loops, service levels and references it accepts. Support for the 215 varies widely between carriers

Who sends it? The shipper, or a 3PL or shipping system acting for it.

Who receives it? The motor carrier collecting the freight.

When is it sent? At or around the pickup, once the shipper knows exactly which shipments are going on the truck.

Why does it matter? A carrier bills, routes and tracks each shipment from what it records at pickup. If that record is keyed from paper, errors in consignee, terms or weight show up later as misdeliveries, wrong bill-to parties and rebills. A 215 hands over the shipper's own data instead.

What the 215 Carries

A 215 has three levels, and each one maps to a real thing on your dock.

1. The pickup (heading). Purpose code, the carrier's SCAC, the manifest number, the pickup date and the shipper's location. One per 215.
2. The shipment (loop 0200, starting with SMD). Service level, payment terms, bill of lading and PRO, commodity, package count and total weight, and the consignee and any other parties. One loop per bill of lading.
3. The package (loop 0240, starting with CD3). Each carton or pallet, with its weight and identifying marks. At least one per shipment.

A fourth level (loop 0260, starting with AT6) carries item and customs detail. The standard reserves it for international shipments, so domestic manifests leave it out.

Interactive Example: 215 for a Three-Shipment Pickup

Lakeshore Home Goods hands three LTL shipments for small retailers to carrier QLTX at one afternoon pickup: one prepaid, one collect and one billed to a third party. The heading names the carrier in BLR, the manifest number in L11*MA, the pickup date and time in G62, and the shipper with its carrier account number. Each SMD loop is one shipment: service level and payment terms in SMD, bill of lading and PRO in L11, a commodity line in L5, packages and weight in MS6, the consignee in N1*CN, then one CD3 and MAN pair per package. The third shipment is billed to a third party (N1*BT). All names, IDs and SCACs are fictional.

Use the Plain English tab for a readable summary, or click any segment to break it down element by element.

215 Structure at a Glance

The table follows X12 004010.

Key Segments Explained

B2A, BLR and L11: The Pickup

B2A*00~
BLR*QLTX~
L11*PM-20261113-01*MA~

The heading L11 is mandatory. Use a manifest number that is unique per pickup, so a correction can point back to the right one.

G62: Pickup Date and Time

G62*69*20261113*U*1400~

The carrier's guide may ask for a different qualifier, for example for the date the freight was actually tendered. The 215 records the pickup; it does not request one. Booking the pickup itself happens by another channel.

N1 Loop (Heading): Shipper

N1*SH*LAKESHORE HOME GOODS~
N3*4100 EASTERN AVE SE~
N4*GRAND RAPIDS*MI*49508*US~
L11*LHG4471*11~
PER*IC*SHIPPING DESK*TE*6165550140~

The heading loop names the pickup location (N101 = SH, shipper). The standard makes an L11 mandatory in this loop. The carrier account number (qualifier 11) is a natural fit, because it ties every shipment on the manifest to your rates and billing. PER gives the dock contact.

SMD: Consolidated Shipment Manifest Data

SMD*G2*PP~

SMD opens each shipment, and its two codes drive the money. The payment code decides who the carrier bills. If it says TP, the shipment's party loop needs a bill-to (N1*BT), as on the third shipment in the example. A shipment sent as prepaid that should have been collect is a 210 freight invoice to the wrong party.

L11 and L5: Shipment References and Commodity

L11*LHG-BOL-77301*BM~
L11*QLTX20482010*CN~
L5*1*HOUSEWARES~

The bill of lading number is the reference that connects this manifest to your 856 ASN and to the consignee's receiving. Shippers that use pre-assigned PRO labels from the carrier can send the PRO here too, which saves the carrier assigning one at the terminal.

MS6: Shipment Quantity and Weight

MS6*2*G*640~

MS6 has no weight unit element, so the unit is whatever you and the carrier agreed, normally pounds in the US. MS601 should equal the number of CD3 loops that follow, and MS603 should equal the sum of their weights. Carriers reweigh freight, and a declared weight that does not match the packages invites a correction on the invoice.

N1 Loop (Shipment): Consignee and Bill-To

N1*CN*ORCHARD STREET MERCANTILE~
N3*215 ORCHARD ST~
N4*MADISON*WI*53703*US~

Each shipment needs at least one party loop and can have up to ten. N101 = CN is the consignee. Add BT (bill to) for third-party billing, and any other party the carrier's guide asks for. A full street address and postal code here is what lets the carrier route the shipment to the right terminal without a phone call.

CD3 and MAN: Package Detail

CD3*G*320~
MAN*CP*QLTX20482010-1~

The CD3 loop is mandatory and repeats once per package, which is why the 215 suits carriers that scan every handling unit. Put the same number in MAN02 that is on the label, so a scan at the terminal matches a line on your manifest. If your packages already carry SSCC-18 labels for the retailer's ASN, the guide may ask for those with qualifier GM.

215 vs 204 vs 211 vs 212

The 204 asks a carrier to take a load. The 211 is the legal document for one shipment. The 215 is a list of everything handed over at once, and the standard says it does not replace either of them. The 212 mirrors the 215 at the other end of the move: the carrier's list of shipments, often from many shippers, on a trailer going to one consignee. After pickup, the carrier reports progress on each shipment with 214 status messages.

Common 215 Errors and How to Prevent Them

215 Implementation Checklist

• Confirm the carrier accepts the 215 and which X12 release it uses
• Get its service level codes for SMD01 and its rules for SMD02
• Confirm the heading L11 qualifier for the manifest number and the account number in loop 0100
• Confirm which party codes it needs per shipment (consignee, bill-to, others)
• Confirm package identification in MAN (carrier-assigned IDs, SSCC-18 or another scheme)
• Confirm how to send a correction or cancellation, and the cutoff time
• Confirm what you still owe the driver on paper (BOL, hazmat papers)
• Test a prepaid, a collect and a third-party shipment, single and multi-package

Our EDI document types reference shows how the transportation sets sit next to order, ship notice and invoice documents, and the bill of lading glossary entry covers the BOL's legal roles.

Where OrderSync Fits

Every line of a pick-up manifest comes from an order: the consignee, the freight terms, the purchase order reference and the quantity. If the order was keyed wrong, the manifest is wrong, and the carrier bills and delivers on that data.

OrderSync reads inbound orders in any format, from EDI 850s and 875s to PDFs, emails and spreadsheets, matches customers, items and units to your catalog, and outputs clean ERP data or valid X12. Your shipping system then starts from accurate consignees, terms and quantities. Paste any 215 into the free EDI inspector to see it parsed segment by segment with a plain-English summary, or book a 15-minute walkthrough to see your own orders processed.

Frequently Asked Questions