About that 'your 997 says rejected but not why' problem...

Somebody on Reddit posted about 997s that just say AK5*R*5 — one or more segments in error — no AK3, no AK4.

Preach.

That's the problem this free doohickey* is for: rejectdecoder.com

^{*If you'd prefer a "gizmo", I can make that happen.}

What it does

Paste the rejection (997, 999, 824, TA1) plus the original bounced document. It parses both locally in your browser and cross-audits them:

• control number agreement


• segment counts


• envelope consistency


• code validity


• required segments

It then quotes the exact segment byte-for-byte and ranks the likely causes for anything it finds. If it finds nothing, it says the answer isn't in the docs and tells you to escalate to your partner with your control numbers — which beats pulling a diagnosis out of my... AIs.

Where the AI does (and doesn't) fit

I know how and appreciate WHY "AI-powered EDI" is sneered at. So the audits here are deterministic parser code, not a model. The AI only writes the plain-English narration of facts the parser already verified, every card says so, and if the narration fails you still get the full audit results. No hallucinations or guesswork.

Privacy

Parsing runs entirely in-browser (the real Python parser, compiled to WebAssembly via Pyodide) and even works with the WiFi off. If you use narration, only a masked summary you preview first ever leaves the page. Don't take my word for it — check your network tab.

Free. No signup for the examples or the deterministic audits; narration is a handful of decodes a month with just an email.

Built it solo from an in-house tool of mine, so it's young AND kinda old. Please tell me where it's wrong. Walmart's rejection quirks are encoded so far. Whose partner nonsense should be next...?

-jjg