Chargebacks are how retailers and other buyers recover the cost of extra handling caused by supplier errors. When a shipment arrives without a usable ASN, the receiving team has to open cartons and count by hand. The buyer passes that cost back to the supplier, under the terms of its vendor compliance program.
Common causes of EDI chargebacks include:
- A missing or late advance ship notice (ASN, EDI 856)
- An ASN that doesn’t match what was actually shipped
- Carton labels that don’t match the ASN or can’t be scanned
- A missing PO acknowledgment (EDI 855)
- Invoices with wrong prices, quantities or references
The buyer usually takes the chargeback as a deduction from payment, shown on the remittance advice (EDI 820) or issued as a credit/debit adjustment (EDI 812). Suppliers then spend time researching and disputing them. Prevention works better than disputes: test documents thoroughly before go-live, validate every document before it is sent and watch for recurring errors by trading partner.