EDI integration in Canada for suppliers using Odoo

Who mandates here, and what they ask for

Canadian Tire, Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart Canada and London Drugs all run supplier EDI programmes. Each publishes its own guideline, tests on its own schedule, and enforces on its own scorecard. The documents underneath are standard: the purchase order arrives as an 850, they expect it acknowledged as an 855, the shipment announced as an 856 before the truck arrives, and the invoice returned as an 810 that matches the order.

The guideline is where retailers differ. One wants the 856 structured by pallet, another by carton. One tests for two weeks, another for two months. The X12 grammar is shared; the dialect is theirs, and the dialect is where the work is.

For customer-specific detail, read the pages on Loblaw EDI requirements and Canadian Tire EDI requirements. Canadian suppliers serving the US can start with the Walmart EDI requirements page.

The cross-border reality

• The mandate that matters is often American

  A Canadian manufacturer shipping Walmart, Target or Kroger answers to the same X12 documents as a supplier in Ohio, on the same deadlines, with the same deductions when a ship notice is late. The border does not appear anywhere in the guideline.

• Currency and units live in the guideline

  The 810 carries a currency and your prices in it. A US retailer expects USD and imperial casepack; a Canadian one expects CAD, and how your GST or HST appears on the invoice is set by their guideline and your Odoo tax configuration together. The guideline settles it per retailer during testing, before the first live invoice.

• One Odoo, both markets

  The same Odoo can serve a Loblaw mandate and a Kroger mandate at once. Each trading partner gets its own mapping and its own cross-references, and the orders land in the same warehouse flow your team already runs.

What changes inside Odoo

The platform or the direct transport moves the file. Inside Odoo, somebody decides which company and warehouse an order lands on, how their item numbers map to yours, what happens when a casepack disagrees, and how the delivery becomes an 856 with the right structure before the truck leaves.

No network sells that half. We do.

The documents themselves are catalogued in plain language on the transaction-codes page, and what happens when one is late or wrong is the subject of the chargebacks guide.