What is the EDI 945 warehouse shipping advice?
The EDI 945 (X12 Warehouse Shipping Advice) is the transaction a third-party logistics provider or warehouse sends to the owner of the goods — the brand, supplier, or distributor whose inventory it holds — to confirm that a shipment left the building. It reports what actually shipped against the instructions in the 940 warehouse shipping order: items and quantities, carrier and SCAC, ship date, and any shorts or substitutions.
Think of the 945 as warehouse closure: pallets staged, carriers assigned, shorts captured. It complements—not replaces—ASN obligations when retailers demand carrier-level visibility separate from DC receipts. Confusion spikes when the same TMS prints labels while two teams trigger different EDI events from overlapping timestamps.
How the 940/945 pairing works
The 940 and 945 form a closed order-to-confirmation loop between the owner of the goods and the warehouse. The owner sends the 940 ("ship these items to this destination by this date"); the warehouse picks, packs, and ships; the 945 comes back confirming exactly what shipped. Every line on the 945 should reconcile to a line on the originating 940 — that reconciliation is where discrepancies (shorts, overs, substitutions) get caught while they are still fixable.
The 945 also drives the documents that follow. In most 3PL-connected flows it is the trigger for the retailer-facing 856 advance ship notice and, once shipment is confirmed, the 810 invoice. A late or wrong 945 therefore cascades: the ASN misses the retailer's pre-arrival window, and the invoice disputes quantity. For the full warehouse document family — 940, 943, 944, and 945 — see our 3PL warehouse documents guide.
Common EDI 945 errors and how to prevent them
Three failure patterns account for most 945 problems in production:
Quantity mismatches against the 940. The warehouse ships a short or substituted quantity but the 945 echoes the ordered quantity (or vice versa). Reconcile every 945 line to its 940 line automatically and route mismatches to a human before downstream documents fire.
Missing carrier or SCAC data.The 945's carrier details feed the 856 ASN; a missing or invalid SCAC in the 945 becomes a rejected ASN at the retailer. Validate carrier codes at the warehouse boundary, not after the ASN bounces.
Late transmission after physical ship. A 945 sent hours after the truck left compresses or destroys the ASN timing window. Treat 945 latency as an SLA with your 3PL — measured from carrier pickup, not from end-of-day batch.
When partners mandate the 945
Mandates cluster in 3PL-heavy supply chains and drop-ship models where the retailer never sees your DC scan directly. If your packet references “warehouse confirmation prior to ASN finalize,” treat 945 as part of critical path testing—not optional QA.
Duplicate narrative risk
If both 945 and 856 carry quantities, establish precedence rules: which document drives inventory commits in your ERP, and which drives retailer-facing promise dates. Document the rule in runbooks—future-you will not remember the tribal consensus from go-live week.
Build a testing matrix, not a single script
Certification scripts often happy-path single-SKU pallets. Production hits mixed pallets, substitutions, and partial waves. Capture three messy scenarios—split wave, cancel/repick, multi-stop truck—and prove your 945 quantities reconcile to SSCC lists attached to ASNs.
X12 segments 945 teams compare to 856
Debug warehouse vs retailer narratives with the segment reference: BSN and HL hierarchy on 856 ASNs vs warehouse-specific loops on 945 implementations. Inbound 856-in-Python and ASN API guide show normalized JSON when you consolidate carton counts from a single WMS source feeding both documents.
3PL agreements and retailer mandates
Clarify EDI ownership in 3PL contracts, then align with retailer programs documented in /edi-requirements and 3PL solutions — ambiguous 945 responsibility is a common silent omission during onboarding.
When engineering owns the 945/856 boundary
3PL-led programs often split EDI responsibility: the warehouse publishes 945 warehouse shipping advice while your tenant publishes the retailer-facing 856. Contract clarity prevents silent omissions — if your agreement centralizes EDI on your SignalEDI workspace, ingest 945 events via webhook and let the platform reconcile carton counts before the 856 leaves. See receive and parse 856 and 856 in Python for inbound ASN patterns; pair with Costco requirement context when warehouse and retail narratives must agree.
Learn more inside SignalEDI
Browse EDI vs API for hybrid stacks and comparison hub if you evaluate platforms during document remediation.
Related Reading
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the difference between the EDI 940 and the EDI 945?
They are the two halves of the warehouse fulfillment loop. The 940 warehouse shipping order flows from the owner of the goods to the 3PL/warehouse and says 'ship this.' The 945 warehouse shipping advice flows back from the warehouse to the owner and says 'here is what actually shipped' — quantities, carrier, and ship date, reconciled against the original 940. The 945 is also what typically triggers the retailer-facing 856 ASN and the 810 invoice.
Q: Is the 945 a replacement for the 856?
No—they solve different visibility layers. The 856 tells the retailer what left your sphere toward theirs; the 945 often reflects warehouse-level disposition inside a 3PL network. Programs specify which document carries legal receipt triggers—never assume interchangeability.
Q: Who generates the 945 when a 3PL ships for me?
Typically the warehouse operator whose WMS owns the physical pick/pack/ship truth—unless your contract centralizes EDI on your tenant. Clarify EDI responsibility in the 3PL agreement; ambiguous ownership causes silent omissions.
Q: Can one shipment produce both 945 and 856?
Yes in multi-leg models—internal consolidation hubs, then outbound retailer-directed legs. The risk is contradictory quantities or times; orchestrate a single source of carton counts feeding both narratives.
Q: Where does SignalEDI help Document 945 mapping?
SignalEDI validates cross-document consistency and surfaces human-readable exceptions before trading partners see rejects—pair with /resources/edi-transactions for code references and /pricing for SMB tiers.