Somewhere between the invoice you sent and the payment that arrived, money went missing — a compliance chargeback, a shortage claim, a promotional allowance you may or may not have agreed to. The EDI 812 Credit/Debit Adjustment is the document built to account for those gaps. It formalizes financial adjustments between trading partners, in both directions, with enough structure that a deductions analyst can actually work from it.
What travels on an 812
Each adjustment opens with a BCD header carrying the adjustment number, date, amount, and — crucially — the reason and the references back to the documents it adjusts: the original 810 invoice, the PO, sometimes the shipment. Line-level detail can follow for adjustments that apply to specific items, with quantities and per-unit amounts. Reason codes classify the adjustment: pricing discrepancy, returned goods, shortage, promotional allowance, compliance violation, freight claim.
The structure matters because adjustments are arguments in miniature. A deduction that arrives as a coded, referenced document can be matched to your own records and either accepted or contested on evidence. One that arrives as a mystery subtraction on a check requires a research project first — which is why partners that trade the 812 are, from a supplier's perspective, easier to hold accountable than partners that deduct silently.
The 812 and the 820: detail versus summary
New EDI teams often ask why deductions show up in two places. The 820 remittance advice reports payments, listing each deduction as a summary line with a reason code — enough to know the money is short and roughly why. The 812 is the companion that carries the full story of a single adjustment: complete references, line detail, and amounts that should tie exactly to the 820's summary. Well-run AR processes reconcile the two: every ADX deduction on a remittance should eventually pair with an 812 (or equivalent backup), and unmatched deductions become the dispute queue.
Suppliers also send 812s — issuing credits for pricing errors before the customer deducts, or debits in the rare cases the flow runs the other way. Proactive credit memos through the same channel keep your AR and the partner's AP synchronized instead of perpetually one dispute apart, and the same channel handles returns settlements cleanly, keeping the paper aligned with the goods.
From adjustment stream to deduction management
At retail scale, adjustments arrive continuously, and the difference between suppliers who bleed margin and those who don't is process:
- Land every 812 in a structured queue, linked automatically to the invoice and order it references.
- Triage by reason code and amount — auto-accept trivial and clearly-valid categories, route the rest.
- Dispute with the paper trail attached: the 856 ship notice, the signed delivery record, the pricing agreement.
- Root-cause the repeat offenders. A recurring shortage claim from one DC or a systematically misapplied allowance is a data problem upstream, not a hundred separate disputes.
Timing discipline matters on the response side too. Most buyers cap how long a deduction can be contested, and the clock runs from the adjustment date — not from when your team got around to reading it. That's one more argument for landing 812s in a queue the day they arrive.
EDISQ handles the plumbing for that workflow — parsing inbound 812s, linking references, and pushing coded adjustments into your ERP or accounting system among our 30+ integrations — so the human effort goes into judgment, not transcription.
Priced like paperwork, not like pain
Adjustments are unwelcome enough without a meter running against them. Under EDISQ pricing an 812 draws on the same allowance as everything else — 25 documents free per month, then from $0.50 per document falling to $0.10 across the volume tiers, marginally billed, with connectivity included and no mapping or setup fees. Knowing exactly what you were charged back, in machine-readable form, is among the cheapest financial intelligence available to a supplier.
FAQ
Who sends the EDI 812?
Either party. Buyers send debit adjustments for chargebacks, shortages, and returns; suppliers send credit adjustments for pricing corrections, promotions, or agreed rebill situations. Direction depends on who owes whom.
How is an 812 different from a deduction on an 820?
The 820 lists deductions as summary lines within a payment. The 812 is a standalone document dedicated to one adjustment, with the reason, references, and line detail needed to actually evaluate it.
Should every 812 be disputed?
No — but every one should be triaged. Valid adjustments get absorbed and root-caused; invalid ones get disputed with evidence. What kills margin is the middle path of ignoring them until the window to respond closes.
What does an 812 cost through EDISQ?
Standard per-document rates: 25 free each month, then from $0.50 declining to $0.10 with volume — inbound and outbound priced the same.