What is X12, the Cross Industry Standard?

X12 is the cross industry standard designed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to support any business function in any industry. It provides a single standard with a single architecture, producing a common, uniform language for electronic communications; however, that creates a lot of extra baggage for any given business use.  For example, the data that you need to buy an aircraft carrier is much different than the data that is needed to buy a shirt. X12 has to support this wide range of capabilities.

X12 was designed primarily as the standard for EDI transactions in North America. In 1997, a global EDI standard emerged out of X12, called EDIFACT.

Today, over 300 X12 transactions sets are used to handle most facets of business-to- business communications in many different industries including retail, government, transportation, and automotive. Common transactions include purchase orders, advanced ship notices, and invoices. X12 standards are developed, maintained and published by the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC).