From mailbox to ERP without a single keystroke
Automating order intake means reading incoming customer orders, checking them, and creating them as sales orders in the ERP. Below is exactly what happens between an order arriving and the confirmation going back out.
How it works today
Someone opens the email, downloads the attachment, looks up the customer in the ERP and retypes the lines. A few minutes per order; at forty orders a day that is half a full-time job doing nothing else.
The real problem is not the time but how easily it goes wrong: one wrong part number produces a wrong delivery, a credit note and an emergency run.
The order lands in the package you already run — Exact Online, AFAS Profit, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or an industry package with an API. Nothing is replaced and nothing is migrated.
- Twenty or more orders a day
- Orders in varying formats from many different customers
- An ERP reachable through an API or an import route
- A translation table of customer part numbers, or the willingness to build one
What happens, step by step
- 1Collect and recognise
Orders are picked up from the mailbox, the portal or a folder. The system recognises whether it is an order and which customer it is from, even when the layout differs per customer.
- 2Read the lines
Items, quantities, requested delivery date and customer reference are read per line. For each field it records how certain the reading is.
- 3Catch duplicates
If the same order arrives through two channels, that is recognised on reference and content before anything is created.
- 4Translate part numbers
Customer numbers are converted to your own SKUs through the translation table. An unknown number is never guessed — it goes to the exceptions list.
- 5Check price and stock
The price is checked against the customer-specific agreement. Stock is checked per line, so a partial delivery becomes visible before the order goes out.
- 6Create and confirm
The order goes into the ERP and the customer gets a confirmation with a delivery time that holds up. Everything is traceable afterwards in the log.
Where it goes wrong when it is built too simply
These are the questions we ask in the quick scan. If a supplier does not ask them, they surface later anyway — usually once there is already an invoice.
- A part number that is not yet in the translation table: never guess, always ask. The table grows by itself as someone handles those exceptions.
- The same order by email and through the portal, sometimes an hour apart and with a changed quantity.
- A price that differs from the price list because there is an annual agreement that is not in the system.
- Three of eight lines in stock, where one customer always accepts partial delivery and another never does.
- VAT reverse-charged for a Belgian customer, while that same customer also has a Dutch branch.
- An attachment that is a scan of a printout from another system, photographed at an angle.
What it delivers
The data entry largely disappears; what remains is handling the exceptions. That is work where someone with knowledge of the business actually adds value.
Orders arriving outside office hours are ready the next morning. Errors from retyping disappear; errors from unclear orders surface instead of passing through.
The exact effect depends on your volume and the number of formats. Below roughly twenty orders a day this automation usually does not pay for itself — which is what the Automation Check works out in advance.
Build: from €8,500
Category: Complex custom work
Build time: 50 to 90 hours
Lead time: 6 weeks or more
Maintenance: Managed, €395 per month
A range, not a quote. What it becomes for you follows from the Automation Check. All prices →
See all prices →Start with one process
Tell us which work gets retyped most often at your company. If automating it turns out to be a bad idea, you will hear that in the first conversation — before there is an invoice.
The first conversation is free and without obligation. Want it substantiated? The Automation Check is €295 — deducted if you have us build within 30 days.