What is an Advance Shipping Notice (ASN)?

Advance Ship Notice or Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) is a document that notifies the customer about a pending delivery. The notification provides all the details about the contents of a shipment of goods, such as order information, product description, packaging information, physical characteristics, carrier information, markings and configuration of goods within the transportation equipment. 

An ASN is generally sent out as an electronic document in electronic data information (EDI) or extensible markup language (XML) format. The EDIFACT equivalent of ASN is known as DESADV (Dispatch Advice).

ASN enables them to optimize their commercial operation and logistics chain.

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How is Advanced Shipping Notice Used?

The Advanced Ship Notice is most relevant in the retail and automotive industry; however, any commercial entities can use this to verify the goods sent by the supplier matches the order. 

There is no fixed format of this document and can be modified according to the need of a particular transaction. For example, a short version of ASN may only include the number of articles, their description, and supplier's data. Additionally, an ASN can provide a list of the barcoded ID numbers of each of the articles shipped. 

The use of EDI makes it automated, so the supplier gets all the information regarding the shipment in a timely manner. Once all the relevant information is provided, this form is automatically transformed into an EDI message and sent through secure Internet protocols like File Transfer Protocol Secure (FTPS), Hyper Text Transport Protocol Secure (HTTPS) or AS2.