EDI 850 Purchase Order: Segments and Examples

The EDI 850 is the X12 transaction set for electronic purchase orders. It is how retailers, distributors and manufacturers tell their suppliers what to ship, where, when and at what price. Almost every EDI order cycle in retail, grocery and distribution starts with an inbound 850, and every later document (the acknowledgment, the ship notice, the invoice) points back to its PO number.

This guide covers what the 850 carries, the segments you will map, four live examples (a Walmart-style replenishment order, a drop-ship order, an Amazon Vendor Central order, and an order with a ship window and terms), how the 850 connects to the documents that follow it, and the errors that cause rejections and short-pays.

What is an EDI 850?

An EDI 850 Purchase Order is the transaction set defined by the ASC X12 standards body that a buyer uses to order goods or services from a supplier. It carries everything a supplier needs to fulfill the order (PO number, ship-to, line items, prices, dates and terms) in a fixed format that the supplier's ERP can load without anyone retyping it. It travels in functional group PO (the GS01 value), and most retail partners still use release 004010.

Authoritative references for 850 work:

• The X12 transaction set catalog defines the 850 and its segment order. The Stedi 004010 850 reference lists every segment and element in that release
• GS1 US standards govern the UPC and GTIN identifiers carried in PO1 product ID pairs, and the Global Location Numbers some buyers use for ship-to locations
• Each large buyer publishes its own 850 implementation guide, which sets the segments it sends, the qualifiers it uses, and the response it expects

Who sends it? The buyer: a retailer, distributor, manufacturer or marketplace.

Who receives it? The supplier, usually through a VAN, AS2 or SFTP connection into its EDI translator.

When is it sent? Whenever the buyer places a new order. Changes to an order already sent normally come as an 860 Purchase Order Change, not a second 850.

Why does it matter? The 850 is the source of truth for the rest of the cycle. The buyer checks your 855 acknowledgment, 856 ship notice and 810 invoice against it. An order loaded with the wrong ship-to, unit or price becomes a wrong shipment and a deduction weeks later.

What's in an 850

An 850 contains everything a supplier needs to fulfill an order:

Interactive example: Walmart 850

This is a Walmart-style replenishment order with fictional data: an original stand-alone PO (BEG*00*SA), a department reference, a requested delivery date, store ship-to and corporate bill-to, and three lines identified by vendor item number and UPC. Use the Plain English tab for a readable translation, the Split View to see raw and parsed side by side, or click any segment to break it down element by element.

Walmart's own requirements are in its supplier implementation guides. Our Walmart EDI compliance page summarizes what suppliers usually need to set up.

850 Structure at a Glance

The 850 has a heading (order-level data), a detail area (one PO1 loop per line) and a short summary. The table lists the segments most suppliers see in release 004010. The standard defines many more optional segments; your partner's guide says which it sends.

"Optional" in the standard often means "required" in a retailer's guide. Build your map from the partner's guide, not from the standard alone.

Key segments explained

BEG: Beginning segment

The header that opens every 850.

BEG*00*SA*4500123456**20231120~

PO1: Line item baseline

One PO1 loop per ordered line.

PO1*001*100*EA*15.99*PE*VN*PROD-12345*UP*012345678905~

More pairs can follow (PO110 onward). Common qualifiers are VN vendor item, UP U.P.C., EN EAN, UK 14-digit GTIN shipping container code, BP buyer's part number and IN buyer's item number. A PID*F segment usually follows each PO1 with the free-text description.

The unit and the price have to agree with each other. A case price on an each line, or the reverse, multiplies the error by the pack size, and it carries straight through to your invoice. The UOM codes reference lists the X12 unit codes.

N1: Name segments

Each N1 loop identifies a party. The code in N101 says which one, and N103/N104 carry an ID.

N1*ST*WALMART STORE 001*92*001~
N3*123 MAIN STREET~
N4*BENTONVILLE*AR*72712~

N103 is the ID qualifier: 92 means assigned by the buyer (a store or DC number), 1 is a D-U-N-S number, and UL is a 13-digit Global Location Number. Load ship-to locations by that code, not by name. Names change; store numbers rarely do.

DTM: Date/time references

A ship window is usually 037 plus 038, and a delivery window 064 plus 063. Read which pair your partner sends: shipping on the last day of a delivery window is late.

ITD: Terms of sale

ITD*01*3*2**10**30~

ITD01 is the terms type (01 basic), ITD02 the date the terms count from (3 invoice date), ITD03 the discount percent, ITD05 the discount days and ITD07 the net days. This one reads "2% 10, net 30". The 810 guide covers ITD element by element, because the invoice is where terms are applied.

CTT: Transaction totals

CTT01 is the number of PO1 lines. CTT02, when sent, is a hash total, usually the sum of the PO102 quantities. Check both when you load the order: a mismatch means lines were lost or duplicated in transit or in your translator.

Interactive example: ship window, terms and a DC ship-to

A home goods retailer orders three items for its Columbus distribution center. The order carries 2% 10, net 30 terms in ITD, a ship window from November 9 to 13 in DTM*037 and DTM*038, and a CTT with three lines and a hash total of 46 units. All parties and IDs are fictional.

Three real-world variants

The 850 is a flexible spec, and every buyer uses it a little differently. These are the three patterns that cover most of the volume in B2B retail.

1. Retail replenishment (Walmart, Target, Kroger)

Store or DC replenishment orders in case-pack quantities, to a requested date or window. The Walmart-style example above is the typical shape.

What to expect:

• Ship-to locations identified by a buyer-assigned store or DC number (N103 = 92)
• A department number in REF*DP
• Product IDs by U.P.C. or GTIN plus your vendor item number
• A routing guide that sits outside the 850 and governs how you ship. On collect freight, routing often runs through a 753 request and 754 routing instructions

2. Drop-ship orders (Target, Amazon, Wayfair)

The retailer takes the consumer's order, then sends you an 850 to ship directly to the consumer. The N1*ST becomes a residential address.

What changes from a replenishment 850:

• BEG02 is DS (dropship)
• N1*ST carries the consumer's name and address instead of a location code
• A REF*CO (customer order number) usually carries the consumer-facing order ID, which you echo on the ship notice and invoice
• Quantities are usually small, often one per line

Our EDI for ecommerce guide covers drop-ship flows in more depth.

3. Amazon Vendor Central

Amazon's 850 follows the same X12 structure with its own conventions, which are set out in its Vendor Central EDI guides.

What this example shows:

• The ship-to is a fulfillment center, identified by its FC code (ONT8 here)
• Items carry the ASIN as a buyer's part number (BP) next to your vendor item number (VN). An ASIN is Amazon's catalog ID, not a GTIN
• BEG02 is NE (new order)
• Requested dates are in DTM. Check which date codes Amazon's current guide uses for the delivery window before you map them

Our Amazon EDI compliance page and Target page summarize each retailer's setup.

How the 850 Relates to Other EDI Documents

The 850 is the first document in the order cycle, and the documents that follow all reference it.

Every one of these carries the original PO number from BEG03, which is how buyer and supplier systems tie the cycle together. The EDI order lifecycle guide walks through the whole sequence.

850 vs 875 vs 860

Implementation best practices

Validate before you acknowledge

Don't send an 855 accepting the order until you've checked the 850 against your own data:

• UPC/GTIN check: Confirm each U.P.C. is 12 digits with a valid check digit and maps to a live item. The check digit calculator verifies one by hand.
• Vendor item resolves: Verify the VN item maps to an active SKU in your item master, not a discontinued or unmapped record.
• Unit and price agree: Compare PO103 and PO104 with your price list for that customer. A price difference is cheaper to raise on the 855 than to argue after the invoice.
• Quantity sanity: Flag zero quantities, or fractional quantities on an each unit, as likely mapping errors.
• Achievable dates: Compare the requested delivery date or ship window with your lead time and cutoffs.
• Complete ship-to: Flag an order whose N1*ST has no location code and no full N3/N4 address.

Respond on time

After an 850 arrives, the buyer usually expects:

The deadline for each one is in the partner's guide or vendor agreement. Some buyers do not use the 855 at all; others treat a late or missing one as a compliance failure.

Common 850 errors and how to prevent them

Most of these surface later as EDI chargebacks or deductions on an 812 or 820, far from the order that caused them.

850 implementation checklist

Before your first live 850 with a new partner:

• Get the partner's 850 implementation guide and its GS08 version
• List the BEG02 order types it sends and how each one is fulfilled
• Load its store and DC location codes for N1*ST
• Confirm which product ID qualifiers it sends, and map each to your item master
• Confirm units, pack sizes and price basis for every item
• Confirm which date codes it uses for delivery dates and windows
• Confirm whether it sends changes as 860s or replacement 850s
• Confirm which responses it expects (997, 855, 856, 810) and their deadlines
• Test an original, a drop-ship (if used), a multi-line order and a change
• Watch your 997s and rejections closely for the first weeks of production

If you are new to retail EDI, our EDI compliance guide and EDI document types reference show how the 850 fits with the other documents your partners may require.

Test your own 850s

Paste an 850 into our free EDI inspector to see every segment parsed and labelled, with a plain-English summary of the order. The inspector also explains structural rejections. To see what an 855 or 856 response would look like for the same order, the EDI response builder drafts one from the 850.

Turning 850s Into Orders With OrderSync

The 850 is one of several ways orders arrive. The same customers may also send PDFs, emails and spreadsheets, and grocery buyers may send 875s.

OrderSync reads inbound orders in all of those formats, matches customers, ship-to locations, items and units to your catalog, and outputs clean data to your ERP or valid X12. Read more about purchase order automation and multi-format order processing, or book a 15-minute walkthrough to see your own orders processed.

Related transaction sets

• 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgment: your response to the 850
• 860 Purchase Order Change: when buyers modify an existing 850
• 856 Ship Notice (ASN): advance ship notification
• 810 Invoice: request for payment
• 997 Functional Acknowledgment: receipt confirmation
• 875 Grocery Products Purchase Order: the grocery UCS order
• EDIFACT ORDERS: the EDIFACT equivalent of the 850, used by UK and European partners

Frequently Asked Questions