The EDI 943 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice is the advance notice that inventory is moving between locations. A depositor, manufacturer, or sending facility uses it to tell a receiving warehouse that a transfer shipment has been made and is on its way — what products, in what quantities, from where, by which carrier, and when to expect them. The receiving warehouse answers later with the 944 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice, confirming what actually arrived.
If the 940 · Warehouse Shipping Order and the 945 · Warehouse Shipping Advice are about goods leaving a warehouse for a customer, the 943 and 944 are about goods moving sideways — from one warehouse to another, from a manufacturer to a 3PL, or between facilities that both hold your stock. That sideways move is where inventory records most quietly go wrong.
What is the EDI 943 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice?
The 943 is an X12 transaction set used by a depositor or an agent of the depositor to advise a recipient that a transfer shipment has been made. It gives the receiving location detailed information about product being shipped to that location, before the truck arrives.
Think of the chain it belongs to:
- The 943 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice says stock has left the sending location and is headed to the receiving warehouse.
- The 944 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice says what the receiving warehouse actually received.
- The 940 · Warehouse Shipping Order tells a warehouse to ship goods out to a customer.
- The 945 · Warehouse Shipping Advice confirms what a warehouse shipped out on that instruction.
- The 846 · Inventory Inquiry/Advice reports stock levels — and it is only trustworthy if transfers like the 943/944 pair are recorded correctly on both ends.
The 943 is not a sales document. No customer ordered anything in it, and nothing in it should create an invoice. It is an internal movement made visible between systems, so the inventory that left one building and the inventory that enters another stay the same inventory in the records.
What does a 943 actually contain?
At the header, the 943 identifies the shipment: a shipment advice number that ties this transfer together, the ship date, the sending location, the receiving location, and the carrier and transportation details for the move.
At the line level, each item reports the product identifier, the quantity shipped, and the unit of measure. Where traceability matters, implementations also carry lot or serial details. Quantities and identifiers have to mean the same thing on both ends. A 943 that ships cases to a warehouse that receives in eaches has not transferred inventory; it has created a discrepancy that the 944 will either expose or, worse, quietly absorb.
Weight, carton, and shipment-reference details help the receiver plan. A warehouse that knows what is coming, and roughly when, can schedule dock time and labor and stage put-away. A warehouse that finds out when the truck backs in cannot.
Why is the 943 different from the 856 · Ship Notice / ASN?
Both documents are advance notices of a shipment, which is why they get confused. Their audiences and jobs are different.
The 856 · Ship Notice / ASN goes to a buyer — usually a retail customer — under a compliance program, with deadlines and chargebacks attached. It says: your order is coming, in these cartons, arriving then.
The 943 goes to a warehouse. It says: your stock is coming. There is no buyer, no purchase order being fulfilled, and no customer promise being made. The promise is internal: the receiving location should be able to plan receiving, and the sender's and receiver's inventory records should agree once the matching 944 comes back.
The 943 has one more job the 856 never does. It can also be used by a manufacturer to authorize a warehouse to accept a return from a customer — telling the warehouse, in advance and in writing, that goods coming back to it are expected and should be received rather than refused.
Where do 943 flows usually break?
The first break is the transfer nobody closes. The 943 is sent, the sending location decrements its stock, and the receiving location is supposed to increment its stock when the 944 confirms receipt. If the 944 never arrives — or arrives and is never matched to the 943 — the goods sit in a record-keeping limbo: gone from one warehouse, never added to the other, while physically sitting on a shelf. Available-to-promise then understates stock you actually own, or, if both sides count the transfer, overstates it and sells inventory twice.
The second break is a quantity or unit-of-measure mismatch that gets received silently. The truck carries 90, the 943 says 100, and receiving books 100 because that is what the document said. The 944 exists precisely to prevent this: it should report what was actually received, including the discrepancy, so the difference is investigated while the shipment is still identifiable — not discovered weeks later in a cycle count.
The third break is timing. A 943 that arrives after the goods do is not an advice at all; it is a reconstruction. The receiving value of the document is that it precedes the shipment, so exceptions — a transfer for a location that should not hold that product, quantities that exceed what the receiver can store — can be raised before receiving, not after put-away.
What should you check in a 943/944 loop?
Three checks keep a transfer honest:
First, pairing: every 943 should eventually have a matching 944. A 943 that stays unpaired past the expected transit time is an open incident, not paperwork in progress.
Second, agreement: quantities, product identifiers, and units of measure on the 944 versus the 943, line by line. Any difference needs a named reason — damage in transit, a short shipment, a mis-pick at the sending location — recorded against the transfer, not absorbed into a stock adjustment nobody can explain later.
Third, timing on both ends: stock should leave the sender's available balance when it ships and enter the receiver's available balance when it is received — not both at the same moment, and not before receipt. The in-transit gap is real inventory in a real place: on a truck. Good systems show it as in transit; weak systems either double-count it or lose it.
A flow that runs those checks turns a stock transfer from the easiest place to lose inventory into a documented move that both warehouses can prove.
Frequently asked questions
Is the 943 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice the same as the 856 · Ship Notice / ASN?
No. The 856 notifies a buyer that their order is coming. The 943 notifies a receiving warehouse that transferred stock is coming. Different recipient, different purpose, no customer order involved.
Who sends the 943 and who receives it?
A depositor, manufacturer, or sending facility sends it; the receiving warehouse or 3PL location receives it. The receiver later answers with the 944 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice.
What document answers a 943?
The 944 · Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice, which reports what was actually received — including any discrepancy against what the 943 said was shipped.
What happens if the 944 never comes back?
The transfer stays unclosed. The sending location has removed the stock and the receiving location has not confirmed adding it, so inventory records disagree with physical stock. Treat an aging unpaired 943 as an exception to resolve, not a delay to ignore.
Does a single-warehouse business need the 943?
Usually not. The 943 earns its keep when inventory moves between locations — multiple warehouses, a manufacturer shipping into a 3PL, or a 3PL rebalancing stock between its own facilities. With one location, there is no transfer to advise.
Inventory that moves without a document is inventory you will eventually argue about. At SignalEDI, we treat the 943/944 pair as a closed loop — every transfer advice tracked until its receipt advice matches it — because phantom stock created by an unclosed transfer is sold, promised, and charged back exactly like real stock, right up until someone tries to pick it.
— Chris, founder of SignalEDI
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