EDI overview
Transport EDI, invoice EDI, electronic invoicing: three complementary worlds.
Updated on May 7, 20261 min readEDIvue ensemble
EDI — Electronic Data Interchange — is a standardised way to send a structured document from one system to another, without human intervention. Three distinct uses coexist in OstraOS, and it pays to distinguish them.
Three uses, three channels
- Transport EDI: logistics messages exchanged with a carrier — shipping notice, orders, delivery proofs, inventories.
- Invoice EDI: generating an invoice in a structured format (CII, UBL, EDIFACT, Factur-X) for direct delivery to a customer through their own EDI channel.
- Electronic invoicing: generating + filing the invoice on an accredited dematerialization platform, with official lifecycle tracking. Mandatory 2026/2027.
The same file (a CII for instance) can power both a direct EDI flow and a platform filing. The difference is not in the file but in the transmission channel and regulatory requirements.