The work and the outcome
Customer aliases and packs cause rekeying errors; inbox receipt does not prove an ERP order exists.
ERP draft order ID is linked to source PO and validation report; customer commitment follows approval.
- Business function
- Order entry
- Typical sponsor
- Head of customer operations
- Working role
- Order-entry coordinator
- Unit of work
- customer PO with up to 20 lines
How this work typically happens today
- Open attachment and identify customer
- Map customer part numbers and units
- Check prices, dates and duplicates
- Enter ERP order and retain PO
How the workflow could run
AI helps prepare and coordinate the work. The review rules define what can proceed and where an accountable person decides.
- 01
Receive the trigger
New PO PDF or spreadsheet arrives in an approved order mailbox.
- 02
Bring the right context together
Version customer-SKU aliases, price lists and ship-to permissions; retain field-level provenance.
- 03
Prepare the work with AI
Extract header and lines with page evidence; resolve approved item aliases; validate totals and duplicate PO keys; prepare ERP draft.
- 04
Review and authorize
Resolve new aliases, ambiguous quantities and special terms; approve first-time customer orders and submit draft.
- 05
Confirm the outcome
ERP draft order ID is linked to source PO and validation report; customer commitment follows approval.
The review experience
PO page and editable line grid with unmatched-cell highlights.
Information and systems
Systems to connect
- Shared mailbox
- document store
- ERP sales-order API
- product master
Context the workflow needs
Customer ID, PO number/date, ship-to, customer SKU, internal SKU, quantity, UOM, unit price, currency, requested date, source page.
What needs to be in place
Readable PO samples, maintained price/UOM masters, ERP sandbox and supported write API; OCR and connectors require implementation.
Human decisions and exceptions
Where people decide
Resolve new aliases, ambiguous quantities and special terms; approve first-time customer orders and submit draft.
The approval boundary
Approved master-data match and reviewer sign-off before order release.
If something is missing or fails
Unreadable pages or API errors create an order-entry task with original PO; no partial order is released.
What to measure
- First-pass valid drafts / attempted POs
- touch minutes / PO
- duplicate posted orders count
What to check during evaluation
Golden PO set by supplier layout; monitor correction rate, schema drift and duplicate-key alerts.
Establish today’s baseline and agree acceptance criteria for representative cases, including exceptions. Count review, rework and operating costs alongside the benefit. Time released creates capacity; a financial saving needs a separate mechanism.
Explore it in your business
What share of orders arrive outside EDI? Request 100 redacted POs, correction logs, duplicate incidents, and observed entry times.
Bring the people who own the process, permitted examples and a clear finish line. Together, we can establish the scope, connections and evidence needed for a useful first deployment.