What is an EDI 997?

An EDI 997 is the Functional Acknowledgment, a receipt confirming that a document arrived and was syntactically valid. It says nothing about whether the business content was accepted — only that the file parsed. Trading partners expect a 997 back within a defined window, often an hour, and a missing one is treated as a transmission failure.

A 997 confirms structure, not agreement. An 850 can be acknowledged by a 997 and still be rejected on its merits by an 855 minutes later, which is why treating a 997 as confirmation that an order is accepted causes real problems.

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