EDI 845 Price Authorization Acknowledgment/Status Guide

The EDI 845 is the contract that every chargeback is judged against. When a manufacturer agrees a special price with a hospital, a buying group, a contractor or a restaurant chain, the distributor that will actually ship the product has to know about it. The 845 tells the distributor which customers get which prices on which items, and for how long. When the distributor later claims the difference on an 844, the manufacturer checks the claim against what it sent here.

This guide covers what the 845 carries, how it fits the contract chargeback cycle, its segments, a live example, and the errors that turn into rejected chargebacks months later.

What Is an EDI 845?

An EDI 845 is the Price Authorization Acknowledgment/Status transaction set defined by the ASC X12 standards body, used by a manufacturer or vendor to tell a distributor the status of, or changes to, outstanding price authorizations. In distribution, a "price authorization" is a contract: an agreement that named customers may buy named items at a set price, which the distributor will fulfil and the manufacturer will fund through chargebacks.

References for 845 work:

• The X12 004010 845 structure on Stedi lists every segment and loop, including the CON, PAD and CTP loops
• The Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) publishes the industry guideline pharmaceutical manufacturers use for 845 bid award and change notices
• Distributor guides such as AmerisourceBergen's 845 bid award specification show how one large wholesaler expects contract dates, buying groups, eligible customers and prices to be sent

Who sends it? The manufacturer, or the contract administration system that manages its pricing agreements.

Who receives it? Each distributor authorized to sell under the contract.

When is it sent? When a contract is awarded, and again whenever it changes: new customers, dropped customers, new items, price changes, extensions and terminations.

Why does it matter? The distributor prices contract sales from the 845. If the distributor's copy of the contract is out of date, it either charges a customer the wrong price or claims a chargeback the manufacturer will reject. Both cost money.

How the 845 Fits the Chargeback Cycle

The 845 is the first document in a four-part cycle. The contract number it publishes is the key that every later document refers to.

1. Contract award (845). The manufacturer sends the contract: number, dates, eligible customers, items and prices.
2. Contract sale. A customer on the contract orders through the distributor. The distributor ships from its own stock, bought at its normal acquisition cost, and invoices the customer at the contract price.
3. Chargeback claim (844). The distributor claims the difference between its cost and the contract price, quoting the contract number.
4. Chargeback response (849). The manufacturer validates each line against the 845 data and accepts, adjusts or rejects it.
5. Resale reporting (867). The distributor reports its sales to end customers, which the manufacturer uses for tracing and for cross-checking chargebacks.

Every rejection reason on an 849 maps back to something in the 845: customer not on the contract, item not covered, sale outside the dates, wrong price. Getting the 845 loaded correctly and promptly is the cheapest chargeback control there is.

Where the 845 Is Used

• Pharmaceuticals. Manufacturers send bid awards and changes for GPO, hospital and pharmacy contracts to the national and regional wholesalers. Customers are identified by DEA number or HIN, and items by NDC.
• Medical and surgical supply. The same pattern for GPO and health system contracts on med-surg products.
• Electronic components. Manufacturers authorize special prices for specific customers or design wins, which distributors later claim through ship and debit.
• Electrical, industrial and building products. Special pricing agreements for contractors, projects or end users.
• Foodservice. Contract or deviated prices for chains and operators, fulfilled by broadline distributors.

Many contracts, especially outside pharma, are still sent as spreadsheets or published in portals. The 845 replaces that with a structured feed the distributor's ERP can load directly.

Interactive Example: Med-Surg Contract Award (845)

Cedar Ridge Medical awards contract CRM-GPO-2026-118 to its distributor, Lakeshore Medical Supply. The contract runs from October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027, covers one health system, and includes two items:

The same contract number flows into the 844 chargeback example and the 849 response example. Note what is not on it: a Foley catheter kit. The distributor later claims a chargeback on that kit, and the manufacturer rejects it.

845 Structure at a Glance

The 845 sits in functional group PA (GS01).

One quirk of the 4010 layout: inside each PAD loop, the price segments (UIT) and item dates come before the LIN that identifies the item. Read a whole PAD loop as one item record, not segment by segment.

Key Segments Explained

BPA: Beginning Segment

BPA*00*20260901~

Some distributors publish separate 845 maps for original awards and for changes. Check which purpose codes your partner accepts, and ask how it treats contract lines that a change notice leaves out, before you build the loader.

DTM: Contract Dates

DTM*124*20261001~
DTM*125*20270930~

X12 defines a family of date qualifiers for contracts:

Customer and item dates are only needed when they differ from the contract dates. Every chargeback line is checked against the most specific date that applies, so a customer added mid-contract must carry its own effective date.

N1 and PER: The Parties

N1*SU*CEDAR RIDGE MEDICAL*ZZ*CRMED~
PER*AC*CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION*TE*5555550142~
N1*DS*LAKESHORE MEDICAL SUPPLY*ZZ*LKSMED~

The header names the manufacturer (SU or MF), the distributor (DS or DB) and, where a GPO negotiated the contract, the buying group (BG). PER gives the contract administration contact the distributor calls with questions. Pharma guides identify parties by DEA number or HIN; other industries use DUNS, GLN or agreed codes.

CON: Contract Number Detail

CON*VC*CRM-GPO-2026-118*OC~

N1, N3, N4 in the CON Loop: Eligible Customers

N1*EB*RIVERBEND COMMUNITY HEALTH*ZZ*RCH-0001~
N3*400 HOSPITAL DRIVE~
N4*SPRINGFIELD*OH*45501~

N101 = EB (eligible party to the contract) names a customer who may buy at the contract price. The identifier in N104 is the one the distributor's 844 must later carry for that customer, so it has to match the distributor's customer master. When a buying group contract covers hundreds of member facilities, this loop repeats for each one, which is why rosters are the part of the 845 most likely to drift out of date.

PAD, UIT and LIN: Items and Prices

PAD*1~
PID*F****NITRILE EXAM GLOVE MEDIUM 10X100~
UIT*CA*71.25*CT~
UIT*CA*92.40*WH~
LIN**VP*CRM-GLV-N200~

Both prices matter. The contract price is what the customer pays. The wholesale price shows the cost basis the manufacturer expects the distributor's chargeback to start from, so the expected chargeback per unit is the gap between them.

CTP: Tiered Prices

CTP**PBQ*71.25*1*CA~

Where a contract has quantity breaks, the CTP loop carries each tier: CTP02 = PBQ (unit price beginning quantity), CTP03 the price and CTP04/CTP05 the quantity and unit where it starts. Contracts without tiers leave it out, as the example does.

CTT: Totals

CTT*1~

CTT01 counts the CON segments in the transaction.

EDI 845 vs 832 and 879

The short version: the 832 tells a buyer what it will pay. The 845 tells a distributor what someone else will pay, and promises to make up the difference.

Common 845 Errors and How to Prevent Them

845 Implementation Checklist

• Get the manufacturer's 845 guide and confirm which industry guideline it follows
• Confirm which party and item identifiers it sends (DEA, HIN, GLN, DUNS, NDC, GTIN, part numbers)
• Map eligible customer identifiers to your customer accounts
• Store contract, customer and item dates separately
• Confirm how changes, additions, deletions and cancellations are sent
• Load contract prices with their unit of measure, and any tiered prices
• Price contract orders from the loaded contracts, and check eligibility at order entry
• Reconcile 849 rejections back to the 845 data to catch loading problems early
• Return a 997 for every 845

Handling Contract Orders With OrderSync

An 845 is only useful if every order lands under the right customer and item, because that is what triggers the contract price and, later, the chargeback. Orders from hospitals, clinics, contractors and restaurants still arrive as PDFs, emails and spreadsheets as often as EDI.

OrderSync reads those orders in any format, from EDI 850s and 875s to emails, PDFs and spreadsheets, matches customers, items and units to your catalog, and sends clean orders to your ERP or outputs valid X12. Paste any 845 into the free EDI inspector to see it parsed with a plain-English summary, read about EDI for industrial supply distributors, or book a 15-minute walkthrough to see your own orders processed.

Frequently Asked Questions