APERAK
APERAK is the UN/EDIFACT application acknowledgement message. Once a received message has passed syntax checking (see CONTRL) and been handed to the business application, APERAK reports the outcome: the application accepted and processed the message, or it rejected it for a business reason — an unknown container number, an invalid party, a booking that cannot be honoured.
APERAK is the second half of the EDI acknowledgement pair. Where CONTRL answers "did it arrive and parse?", APERAK answers "did the application accept it?". Together they give the sender end-to-end certainty: transmission received, syntax valid, and content accepted (or a specific error to fix). It is widely used to acknowledge bookings, status reports and customs messages.
APERAK closes the loop on an EDI exchange. A positive APERAK means the other side's application actually accepted your booking or declaration; a negative one names the business error to fix. Without it, "message sent" never becomes "message accepted", and errors surface as operational surprises instead of immediate feedback.
syntax OK
processes
error reported
What does an APERAK message report?
The application-level result of a received message — accepted and processed, or rejected for a business reason such as an unknown container number or invalid party.
Do CONTRL and APERAK work together?
Yes — CONTRL acknowledges that the interchange arrived and is syntactically valid; APERAK then acknowledges whether the application accepted the content. Together they give end-to-end delivery certainty.