Many companies receive orders by email, often as a PDF attachment. Someone opens them, reads item codes and quantities, checks prices and stock and retypes everything into the ERP. It’s one of the simplest and most profitable processes to automate.
How automatic order entry works
- The incoming email is recognised as an order.
- AI reads the PDF and extracts the customer, item codes and quantities.
- Software checks prices and stock against the ERP (Odoo, SAP or others).
- A draft order is created; unclear cases go to a person.
- A person approves, and the confirmation goes to the customer.
How much time and money you save
An example: 40 orders a week, 32 minutes each to enter by hand. With automation about 4 minutes of checking remain. That’s 28 minutes saved per order, about 18.5 hours a week. At €32 an hour and about 4.3 weeks a month, that’s roughly €2,500 a month, before counting the errors avoided.
Does it work with my ERP?
In most cases, yes: modern systems offer APIs, older ones allow file imports. We connect to what’s there without replacing it.
Errors and human control
AI can misread a document. That’s why every extracted value goes through software checks and, when confidence is low, to a person. No order goes out without approval.
What you need to get started
- Access to the mailbox where orders arrive.
- A connection to the ERP (API or file import) and to the price list.
- About twenty real orders covering the common cases and a few exceptions, to set up and test the extraction.
- A point of contact who knows the rules: discounts, minimum quantities, substitute items.
How accuracy is measured
Before going live, extraction is tested on real orders that have already been processed, comparing the data read with the data entered by hand. We measure the share of correct lines and set the threshold above which an order goes through automatically. Everything below it goes to a person, along with the reason.
In the first months the share of orders handled without intervention grows, because every correction improves the rules and the model’s instructions.
Frequently asked questions
Can it read orders in different formats?
Yes. AI handles PDFs with different layouts, text in the email body and Excel attachments.
What if an item is out of stock?
The system flags it and prepares a proposal, such as a partial delivery, for a person to approve.
Is customer data safe?
We use business services that don’t train on your data and, where possible, infrastructure in the EU.