What Are ACES and PIES? The Auto Parts Data Standards, Explained
ACES covers automotive fitment, telling buyers which vehicles or equipment a part fits. PIES covers the product record: descriptions, attributes, prices, packaging and digital assets. Together, ACES and PIES, sometimes searched for as “ACES PIES,” give manufacturers, distributors, retailers and ecommerce companies a consistent, machine-readable way to exchange catalog data.
A brake pad can have a polished product page, detailed specifications and a competitive price. None of that helps if the buyer cannot establish that it fits the vehicle in the workshop. What good is a detailed listing if the part is wrong for the vehicle?
Contents
- THE SHORT VERSION
- WHAT DOES ACES STAND FOR?
- WHAT DOES PIES STAND FOR?
- ACES VS PIES: HOW THE STANDARDS DIFFER
- THE REFERENCE DATABASES BEHIND ACES AND PIES
- WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PARTS DATA BREAKS DOWN?
- WHO USES AND MAINTAINS ACES AND PIES?
- ACES 5.0 AND PIES 8.0 ARE THE CURRENT VERSIONS
- HOW A COMMERCE PLATFORM USES ACES AND PIES
- ACCURATE DATA IS THE FOUNDATION OF ONLINE PARTS SALES
- FAQS
The Short Version
- ACES covers automotive fitment, showing which vehicles or equipment a part fits.
- PIES covers the product record, including descriptions, attributes, prices, packaging and digital assets.
- Both use standardized reference data and XML.
- Manufacturers, distributors, retailers and ecommerce companies use them to exchange catalog information.
- The Auto Care Association manages both standards with industry input.
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What Does ACES Stand For?
ACES stands for Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard. It is the industry standard for managing and communicating fitment data, meaning the information that connects a part number to the vehicles or equipment on which it can be used. The Auto Care Association describes ACES as covering light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles as well as powersports and off-highway equipment.
In the aftermarket, this connection is often called an application. ACES provides a common XML structure for sending those applications to distributors, retailers and other trading partners.
The Auto Care Association’s ACES overview uses Year, Make and Model lookup as a practical example. A company can associate a product with standardized vehicle configurations and add qualifiers when YMM alone does not identify the correct application.
💡 For a closer examination of how that information reaches the storefront, see how fitment works in B2B ecommerce.
Some storefronts also allow buyers to enter a VIN. However, VIN decoding is a separate process used to identify the vehicle before the resulting attributes can be matched against fitment data.
What Does PIES Stand For?
PIES stands for Product Information Exchange Standard. While ACES connects the part to a compatible vehicle, PIES communicates the information that describes and identifies the part itself. That information can then be used by distributors, retailers, catalogs and ecommerce systems.
According to the official PIES 8.0 overview, a PIES XML file can carry marketing descriptions, prices, warranties, product specifications, hazardous-material information, kits, interchange data and digital assets. Packaging information is also covered.
PIES does not ordinarily provide live inventory or availability. Those values generally come from ERP, inventory or commerce systems. Its role is to give trading partners a consistent product record, using standardized classifications, attributes and brand identifiers instead of every supplier inventing its own terminology.
ACES vs PIES: How the Standards Differ
ACES and PIES cover different parts of the catalog record. ACES automotive data links a product to compatible vehicles or equipment; PIES automotive data supplies the descriptions, specifications and commercial details needed to evaluate and order it. A large aftermarket catalog normally needs both.
So, what is the difference between ACES and PIES? The table below shows how their roles, data and ecommerce uses compare.
|
Point of comparison
|
ACES automotive
|
PIES automotive
|
|---|---|---|
|
Full name
|
Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard
|
Product Information Exchange Standard
|
|
Primary purpose
|
Communicate product fitment
|
Communicate product information
|
|
Central question
|
What does this part fit?
|
What is this part?
|
|
Typical content
|
Vehicle applications and qualifiers
|
Descriptions, attributes, prices, packaging and assets
|
|
Ecommerce use
|
Vehicle-specific search and compatibility
|
Catalog listings and product pages
|
|
Exchange format
|
XML
|
XML
|
Fig. ACES vs PIES at a glance.
The two standards are therefore complementary. Product information without fitment leaves the buyer uncertain about compatibility. Fitment without a sufficiently detailed product record makes comparison and purchasing difficult.
The Reference Databases Behind ACES and PIES
ACES and PIES define how data is exchanged, but they are supported by relational databases containing standardized codes and terminology. These reference databases allow two trading partners to interpret a vehicle, product type, qualifier, attribute or brand in the same way rather than attempting to reconcile different descriptions.
|
Reference database
|
Function
|
Used with
|
|---|---|---|
|
VCdb
|
Vehicle and equipment configurations
|
ACES
|
|
Qdb
|
Coded fitment qualifiers
|
ACES
|
|
PCdb
|
Standard product terminology
|
ACES and PIES
|
|
PAdb
|
Product-specific attributes
|
PIES
|
|
Brand Table
|
Parent companies, brands and sub-brands
|
ACES and PIES
|
Fig. Reference data used by ACES and PIES.
The Qdb illustrates the practical value. It replaces inconsistent free-text fitment notes with coded qualifiers that catalog systems can parse and validate. Access to the relevant reference databases requires a paid Auto Care subscription, although the standards documentation is available through the association’s Digital Hub with an account.
What Happens When Parts Data Breaks Down?
Inaccurate or incomplete data can prevent a valid part from appearing in search, present an incompatible product as suitable or cause a trading partner to reject a catalog feed. Missing PIES information can also leave product pages without the descriptions, specifications or assets that buyers need to compare similar components.
Why are ACES and PIES important? They reduce the room for interpretation as data passes between manufacturers, data providers, distributors and retailers. That consistency can mean less duplicated data entry, fewer catalog feeds rejected by a trading partner and fewer parts returned because a listing said they fit.
Standards cannot make poor source data accurate. They give companies a common structure in which that data can be checked, corrected and distributed.
Who Uses and Maintains ACES and PIES?
If your business creates, manages, receives or publishes parts information, ACES and PIES may affect how that data moves through the aftermarket supply chain. The Auto Care Association manages the standards under the guidance of its Technology Standards Committee, while industry workgroups contribute to their development and review.
|
Organization
|
Typical relationship to the data
|
|---|---|
|
Manufacturers and brands
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Prepare or commission product and fitment records
|
|
Distributors and program groups
|
Receive, validate and redistribute catalog data
|
|
Retailers and marketplaces
|
Use the records in catalogs, search and product pages
|
|
Ecommerce companies
|
Present fitment and product information to buyers
|
|
Data service providers
|
Create, clean, validate or convert files
|
|
Small specialist sellers
|
May find full implementation unnecessary for a narrow catalog
|
Fig. Who uses ACES and PIES.
Who maintains ACES and PIES? The Auto Care Association oversees their management, but the process includes the Technology Standards Committee and people working across the industry. Each version goes through a formal industry review before release.
ACES and PIES are North American aftermarket standards, particularly relevant to companies with large catalogs and numerous trading partners. They are industry standards rather than legal requirements, and using them does not automatically guarantee acceptance by every marketplace or retailer.
ACES 5.0 and PIES 8.0 Are the Current Versions
The Auto Care Association released ACES 5.0 and PIES 8.0 on April 2, 2026 after a yearlong industry review. The release also introduced updated schemas for the five supporting reference databases.
ACES 5.0 expanded multilingual and digital-asset capabilities. PIES 8.0 added Extended Producer Responsibility packaging information, additional package configurations and new ways to validate and organize digital assets.
When moving from previous versions, check which fields exports populate, which validation rules apply and how your catalog maps to trading-partner feeds. Auto Care publishes the schemas and documentation through its Digital Hub. For a checklist, see the ACES 5.0 / PIES 8.0 migration.
How a Commerce Platform Uses ACES and PIES
A commerce platform does not author ACES and PIES records. Fitment is governed upstream in a PIM, a dedicated fitment tool or by a specialist data provider, then reaches Virto as data. Virto presents the product record and fitment through search, catalogs and product pages.
In B2B commerce for the auto parts aftermarket, that division of labor decides whether a buyer's search returns the right part or the wrong one.
Virto Commerce reads data from your PIM, ERP and fitment systems through their own interfaces, so buyers can find and order the right part at their account-specific price. KW Parts, a European distributor of American auto parts, runs a catalog of more than four million products on Virto. This shows catalog scale, not ACES or PIES handling. Virto does not replace the specialist systems that create or validate the standards data.
Built by Reveation Labs on the Virto platform, the Aftermarket Fitment Accelerator shortens the work of getting fitment search live on the customer's existing data and systems. It stops short of a finished storefront.
A typical ACES and PIES data flow.
Accurate Data Is the Foundation of Online Parts Sales
ACES and PIES give the aftermarket a shared language for two inseparable parts of the catalog: vehicle compatibility and product information. They cannot correct the source data by themselves, but they make that information easier to validate, exchange and use throughout the supply chain.
To see how an ACES and PIES feed becomes fitment search and product pages, ask for a walkthrough of Virto Commerce.
