CVS Pharmacy EDI: How does a business become EDI compliant with CVS PHARMACY?

Headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, U.S, CVS Pharmacy is an American retail corporation founded in 1963. CVS Pharmacy is currently the largest pharmacy chain in the United States by number of locations (over 9,600 as of 2016) and total prescription revenue. The company offers prescription drugs, beauty products, cosmetics, film & photo finishing services, seasonal merchandise, greeting cards, and convenience foods through their CVS Pharmacy and Longs Drugs retail stores and online through CVS.com.

CVS Health offers outstanding service and value to its customers, while meeting their healthcare needs and making their overall shopping experience as easy as possible.

How to Get Products Listed at CVS Pharmacy

Getting listed with CVS Pharmacy may seem like a tedious task, but it can be divided into two phases.

• Submitting product for approval
• Meet CVS Pharmacy EDI requirements

1. Submit for Product Approval

First suppliers need to submit product listings for review. Retailers like CVS Pharmacy are always looking for new and exciting products that they can offer their customer base.

• Create a product profile.
• Your product is matched with the proper category buyer.
• Buyers review your products. Once your product has been reviewed, you’ll receive a notification.

2. Meet CVS Pharmacy EDI requirements

CVS Pharmacy is the largest pharmacy chain in the United States. To be a new supplier of CVS Pharmacy, you need to exchange important business documents through a process known as EDI. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) provides the standard--ANSI X12-- by which CVS conducts its B2B electronic commerce. For new business, CVS EDI compliance typically requires an established, working relationship with a VAN before sending purchase orders.

VANs translate orders from CVS EDI into a readable format for the supplier's EDI order management system. Infocon Systems is a third-party EDI Service provider to CVS Pharmacy that enables businesses to easily connect, manage and fulfil orders within a cloud-based EDI and eCommerce portal simplifying the fulfilment process. Infocon Systems (An EDI VAN service provider ) offers feature-rich services including web administrative tools, accounting, security, hosted transition services and private connections. Infocon Systems will:

• manage complete onboarding of a business partner
• provide a fully outsourced EDI service
• manage data flow and quality
• manage back-office Integration

3. The basic EDI documents for setting up EDI with CVS Pharmacy are:

Depending on relationship with CVS Pharmacy suppliers may be required to send the following EDI business document types:

• Advanced Ship Notice/Manifest (EDI 856) – Contains ordered Item’s description, packaging types etc. (is sent by Vendor);
• Inventory Inquiry/Advice (EDI 846) – Communicate inventory information between CVS Pharmacy and suppliers
• Purchase Order Acknowledgement (EDI 855) – Using EDI 855, vendors communicate receipt or rejection of an order to CVS Pharmacy. (is sent by Vendor);
• Invoice (EDI 810) – A request for payment of goods or services. (Is sent by Vendor)
• Functional Acknowledgement (EDI 997) – It is automatically sent as a response to an EDI document reception and contains information about wrong data, missing required data or violates character length limit. (If there is any).

Suppliers receive the following EDI business document types from CVS Pharmacy:

• Purchase Order (EDI 850) – Contains ordered Item’s name, price, quantity etc. To prevent confusion and duplicate shipments, POs will only be sent once and will not be re-sent. (is sent by CVS Pharmacy);
• Payment Order / Order Remittance Advice (EDI 820) –Issued by a buyer after the receipt of an EDI 810 Invoice
• Functional Acknowledgement (EDI 997) – It is automatically sent as a response to an EDI document reception and contains information about wrong data, missing required data or violates character length limit. (If there is any).
• Purchase Order Change (EDI 860) – It is used by CVS Pharmacy to request a change to a purchase order (EDI 850) they previously submitted. (is sent by CVS Pharmacy);
• Any other EDI documents required by CVS Pharmacy

To learn more about how Infocon Systems can take care of your EDI needs for CVS Pharmacy, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at +1 888-339-0722 or email sales@infoconn.com. We’d love to hear from you.