Use cases/Construction and industrial/AI ordering
AI ordering and order entry
AI ordering means customer orders reaching your system without anyone typing them. Orders arrive by email, PDF, spreadsheet, portal export and photo, and every one of them is keyed by hand today. A model reads them, matches lines to the customer and your catalogue, and creates the order. Anything it is not sure about goes to a person.
Talk to our team →- Supports
- Order entry clerk
- Reads
- Emailed orders, Text and WhatsApp, PDF orders, Product database
- Runs on
- Your servers, on premises
- Connects to
- Unleashed, Cin7, DEAR, CartonCloud
- Decides
- A person, every time
Architecture
Everything runs on your servers
We build it beside the inventory, warehouse or accounting system you already run. Unleashed, Cin7, CartonCloud, NetSuite or MYOB stays the system of record. The order entry team becomes a customer service team.
- SourcesEmailed orders / Text and WhatsApp / PDF orders / Product database
- Your serversRead the order → Match each line → Key the sales order
- ReviewOrder entry clerk
- OutputOrders read in any format / Lines matched from customer history / Created in your system / One exception queue
It takes four jobs off the order entry clerk
- 01
Orders read in any format
Each customer sends orders their own way. Intake is designed per customer format and tested against your own order history before it goes live.
- 02
Lines matched from customer history
A handwritten line or a customer part number is matched to your product using what that customer bought before. That is far more reliable than the catalogue alone.
- 03
Created in your system
Orders land in the WMS, inventory or accounting system as drafts or live orders, depending on confidence. The rep or operations team confirms where needed.
- 04
One exception queue
Changed product codes, mismatched addresses and odd quantities surface in one place with the reason attached instead of in an inbox.
It goes live in five steps
- Step 01
Collect six months of orders per customer
The real files, in the formats they arrive in. This is the test set and it decides the design.
- Step 02
Design intake per format
Each customer's format is handled on its own terms, and the informal rules your team applies by hand are written down and encoded.
- Step 03
Test against history and set the threshold
The auto-create threshold goes where the error rate matches what your team already produces manually.
- Step 04
Go live with one review queue
Orders above the threshold are created. The rest surface in one place with the reason attached, in priority order.
- Step 05
Add customers in batches
The biggest formats first, then the tail, with EDI customers feeding the same queue so operations watch one screen.
Software or a custom build
EDI and customer portals handle ordering well for the customers who will use them. The problem is the long tail who will not. A build handles that tail in whatever format it arrives, and can run alongside EDI for the customers who already have it.
Unleashed / Cin7 / DEAR / CartonCloud / NetSuite / MYOB Advanced / Xero
In practice
For a meat distributor, an agent on their product database reads text and WhatsApp orders, prices each line and drafts the sales order and the quote. Customers order the way they always did. The business now handles more than 100 orders a day and has doubled without adding headcount.
The supplier side of the same problem, purchase orders and invoice matching, is covered under AI in procurement. How long a first build takes is in our timeline guide. We do most of this work with logistics and wholesale businesses.
Questions
Our customers all order differently. Can that be automated?
That is the normal case. Intake is designed per customer format and tested against your own history. The confidence threshold sits where the error rate matches what your team produces by hand.
What happens to orders the AI is not sure about?
They go to a single review queue with the reason highlighted. Typically around one order in ten needs a person, and that is the order worth a person looking at.
Can it work alongside EDI?
Yes. EDI keeps handling the customers who use it. The build handles everyone else, and both can feed the same exception queue so operations watch one place.
How long does it take to set up?
A first customer set is usually live within a few weeks of discovery, with more customer formats added as they are tested. We scope and quote each stage before it starts.
Industries where this comes up
Wholesale / Logistics / Manufacturing
More construction and industrial use cases
Estimating / Quoting / Procurement / Tendering / Payables / Billing and receivables / Document search
Before you call
Tell us where your hours go.
We map the work, size the hardware and price what is worth automating.
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