Definition
EDI 850 (Purchase Order)
The X12 EDI transaction set used to send a purchase order electronically between trading partners.
EDI 850 is the standardized electronic format for a purchase order in the X12 EDI standard. Large retailers and OEMs use it to send POs to suppliers in a machine-readable form, eliminating manual entry for those relationships.
EDI works well for high-volume, onboarded trading partners but is costly to set up for every customer. As a result, smaller and regional customers keep sending PDF and email orders — the long tail that AI-based order automation handles without requiring EDI onboarding.