Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the computer-to-computer exchange of business data in a publicly published and globally standardised format. EDI is the transfer of structured business data, by agreed message standards, from one computer application to another by electronic means and with a minimum of human intervention.

Despite being relatively unheralded, in this era of technologies such as XML Services, the Internet and the World Wide Web, EDI is still the engine behind 95% of all electronic commerce transactions in the world.

The EDI standards were designed from the beginning to be independent of lower-level technologies and can be transmitted using Internet protocols as well as private networks. It is important to differentiate between the EDI documents and the methods for transmitting them. While comparing the bisynchronous 2400 bit/s modems, cleo devices and value added networks to the Internet some people predicted erroneously that EDI would be replaced. These older transmission methods are being replaced by Internet Protocols such as FTP, telnet and email, but the EDI documents themselves remain.

EDI documents contain the same data that would normally be found in a paper document used for the same business function. For example an EDI 940 ship-from-warehouse order is used by a manufacturer to tell a warehouse to ship product to a retailer. It typically has a ship to address, bill to address, a list of product numbers (usually a UPC code) and quantities. It may have other information if the parties agree to include it.

There are three major sets of EDI standards. The UN/EDIFACT is popular in Europe and Asia. ANSI ASC X.12 and Uniform Communication Standard (UCS) are popular in North America and are very similar to each other.

These standards prescribe the formats, character sets, and data elements used in the exchange of documents/forms, such as purchase orders (called ORDERS in UN/EDIFACT and TS850 in X12) and invoices.

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