--- title: "What Is an EDI 940 (Warehouse Shipping Order)?" url: https://www.uncap.com/glossary/edi-940 author: "Denis Dyli" published: 2026-10-11 updated: 2026-10-11 summary: "An EDI 940 is the X12 Warehouse Shipping Order transaction set. A depositor or other business party sends it to advise a warehouse to make a shipment, confirm a shipment, or modify or cancel a shipping order it transmitted earlier. The warehouse later reports the shipment back with the 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice." --- # What Is an EDI 940 (Warehouse Shipping Order)? > An EDI 940 is the X12 Warehouse Shipping Order transaction set. A depositor or other business party sends it to advise a warehouse to make a shipment, confirm a shipment, or modify or cancel a shipping order it transmitted earlier. The warehouse later reports the shipment back with the 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice. **EDI 940 (Warehouse Shipping Order)**: An EDI 940 is the X12 Warehouse Shipping Order transaction set. A depositor or other business party sends it to advise a warehouse to make a shipment, confirm a shipment, or modify or cancel a shipping order it transmitted earlier. The warehouse later reports the shipment back with the 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice. ## How it works The 940 sits alongside other X12 warehouse transaction sets. Each one carries a different message between depositors, warehouses and receiving locations: - 940 Warehouse Shipping Order: the depositor asks the warehouse to ship, or changes or cancels that request. - 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice: the warehouse advises the depositor that the shipment was made. X12 says it is used to reconcile order quantities with shipment quantities. - 943 and 944: the Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice and the Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice, for transfer shipments made and received. - 947 Warehouse Inventory Adjustment Advice: a quantity or status change to inventory records. **Where the EDI 940 sits in a warehouse shipment** ### 1. EDI 940, Shipping order The depositor advises the warehouse to make a shipment, or to modify or cancel a shipping order sent earlier. ### 2. EDI 997, Functional acknowledgment The warehouse can return a 997, which reports the results of the syntax check on the 940. ### 3. Ship, Warehouse ships The warehouse makes the shipment the 940 asked for. ### 4. EDI 945, Shipping advice The warehouse advises the depositor that the shipment was made, so order and shipment quantities can be reconciled. ## What it contains Trading partners can publish their own 940 implementation guides, so the segments used can vary from partner to partner. The segment names and purposes below come from one retailer's published 940 implementation guide: - W05 Shipping Order Identification: identifying numbers and other basic data for the shipping order. - N1, N3 and N4: each party by type of organization, name and code, with its location and geographic place. - N9 and G62: extended reference information, and the pertinent dates and times. - NTE: free-form notes or special instructions. - W66 Warehouse Carrier Information: transportation instructions relating to the shipment. - LX and W01 Line Item Detail, Warehouse: a line number, then the basic and most frequent shipment-related data for that line item. - G69: a free-form description of the item. ## Example A merchant keeps its stock at a third-party warehouse. A wholesale order needs 40 cases of two products. The 940 the merchant sends has a W05 identifying the order, an N1 for the ship-to party, a W66 with the transportation instructions, and two LX lines: a W01 for 15 cases of the first product and a W01 for 25 cases of the second. 15 + 25 = 40 cases. When the goods leave, the warehouse's 945 reports what shipped. ## On Shopify In Shopify's developer docs, a fulfillment service is a third-party warehousing service that prepares and ships orders on behalf of the store owner. Each fulfillment service is associated with its own location. Merchants submit a request to a fulfillment service to fulfill an order, and the fulfillment service can accept or reject it. A request can cover all line items or name individual items with quantities for partial fulfillment. After a request is approved, merchants can also submit a request to cancel the fulfillment order before it ships. On the X12 side, a 940 likewise lets the depositor ask a warehouse to make a shipment or cancel a shipping order. ## How Uncap helps Uncap's [Shopify EDI integration guide](/post/shopify-edi-integration) names 3PL networks among the partners that cannot connect to Shopify directly via EDI protocol: the EDI layer sits between them and your Shopify store and translates structured electronic documents into Shopify order events and back. ## Related terms - EDI (electronic data interchange) - EDI 945 - EDI 850 - EDI 856 - EDI 997 - Purchase order ## Sources - X12 Transaction Sets - A retailer's published EDI 940 implementation guide (PDF) - Shopify: About fulfillment services ## Frequently asked questions ### What is a 947 EDI document? The 947 is the X12 Warehouse Inventory Adjustment Advice. It informs a warehouse, depositor or other party of a quantity or status change to inventory records, with detail on the internal adjustments between them. ### What is an EDI 944? The 944 is the X12 Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice. A receiving location uses it to advise the depositor that a transfer shipment has been received, with detail on the product received. ### What is EDI 850 used for? The 850 is the X12 Purchase Order, used for placing purchase orders for goods and services. It should not be used for purchase order changes or acknowledgments.