Warehouse Shipping Order
What is EDI 940?
The EDI 940 is the ANSI X12 Warehouse Shipping Order transaction set. The owner of inventory (the depositor) sends it to a 3PL or remote warehouse to authorize and instruct a shipment: which items and quantities to ship, to which destination, by which date and carrier.
The 940 is how you run a warehouse you do not operate. A brand or distributor holding inventory at a 3PL cannot walk to the pick line, so the 940 is the instruction: ship 48 cases of this item to this DC by this date, prepaid, via this carrier. The warehouse executes and answers with an EDI 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice confirming what actually left. The 940 is also a freight trigger: fulfilling it usually means tendering a carrier, which in truckload and LTL happens through an EDI 204 Load Tender, with EDI 214 status messages tracking the move. If you orchestrate 3PL fulfillment, the 940/945 pair and the 204/990/214 set are two halves of the same operation.
Key segments
What's inside an EDI 940.
Example
A sample EDI 940 message.
ST*940*0001~W05*N*SO-77120*4501776~N1*ST*Northgate Distribution Center*92*DC014~N1*WH*Harborview Warehouse*92*WH07~G62*10*20260812~W66*PP*M~LX*1~W01*48*CA**VN*PS-4416~W76*48~SE*10*0001~
Illustrative values in X12 format (segment terminator ~, element separator *) showing the common segments of a 940. Each trading partner's spec defines its own required segments and qualifiers.
Frequently asked
EDI 940 questions, answered.
What is an EDI 940?
The EDI 940 is the X12 Warehouse Shipping Order. The owner of inventory sends it to a third-party warehouse to instruct an outbound shipment: the items, quantities, ship-to destination, dates, and carrier or routing preferences.
What is the difference between an EDI 940 and an EDI 850?
The 850 is a purchase order between a buyer and a seller: it changes ownership. The 940 is a shipping instruction between an inventory owner and its own warehouse: nothing is being bought, goods are being moved. A customer’s 850 frequently triggers a 940 to the 3PL that fulfills it.
What is the difference between an EDI 940 and an EDI 204?
The 940 instructs a warehouse to prepare and ship an order; the 204 tenders the physical move to a motor carrier. Fulfilling one 940 often produces one 204: the warehouse picks the freight, then the load is offered to a carrier, who accepts with a 990 and reports progress with 214s.
How does the warehouse respond to a 940?
With an EDI 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice once the order ships, confirming actual quantities, carrier, and references. Some setups also send a 997 acknowledgment on receipt of the 940 and an 856 ASN to the end customer.
Who uses the 940 in practice?
Brands, importers, and distributors that outsource fulfillment to 3PLs, and any operation running remote warehouses on a WMS that speaks EDI. It is the standard way to keep instruction and execution in sync without emails and spreadsheets.
Melrose maintains full segment-level specs for the core freight set (204, 990, 214, 210) and stands up new transaction sets like the 940 on request. See the partner network or book a demo.
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