What is a 997 functional acknowledgement?

A 997 is an automated functional acknowledgment response document that is either sent to or received from a trading partner. It is a front end acknowledgment that validates document structure for fatal errors.

If a document is rejected for structural content in WebEDI the status column for that specific document will display 'Rejected' in red. There is also a red Error tab that will list out any rejected documents.

A document that is accepted will display 'Accepted' under the status column in green. This only indicates that the document was successfully processed into the trading partners server. There is an additional data validation that will occur to ensure all information is as expected. If any errors are determined an 824 document will be sent back to you with the errors outlined. Most, but not all trading partners return this document. Upon receipt of the 824 you will be able to correct any errors and resubmit the document.