Can PDF purchase orders go into our ERP automatically?

Yes, as drafts, if your ERP accepts orders through an API or an import file. Each PDF is read, mapped to your product codes and checked against prices and stock. A person approves the draft before it is confirmed.

Do we need a separate email address for orders?

It helps. Orders stay out of the general queue, and access can be limited to that one mailbox. Only 7% of the 209 supplier websites we read give one.

What about customers who use their own part numbers?

They are matched through a cross-reference built from your order history. A code seen for the first time is flagged, and once your team confirms it, it is matched from then on.

How do you stop the same order going in twice?

Every PO number is checked against orders already entered for that customer. A repeat is flagged on the draft and not entered.

Can we try it before committing to anything?

Yes. Send us one real order, names and prices blanked if you like. By the end of the next working day you get back the lines we read and what we would flag.

A practical guide for UK distributors, wholesalers and manufacturers

How to get email and PDF orders into your ERP without retyping them

Send every order to one inbox, read each email or PDF into lines in your own product codes, check them against the customer’s prices and your stock, and create a draft sales order in your ERP for someone to approve. The steps are below, and you can start the first three this week without us.

Book thirty minutes

Or send us one order and see the draft it would become.

The problem

The customer’s system typed the order. Your desk types it again.

A purchase order from a customer’s buying system arrives as a tidy PDF: PO number, their part numbers, quantities, prices, a delivery address. Someone on your desk finds the account, works out that their 4471-B is your 15mm tee, and keys every line. Smaller customers send the same thing as a plain email or a photo.

Most suppliers have no separate route for orders. Of the 209 UK supplier websites we read, 7% give an email address just for orders; the rest send orders into the same inbox as every other enquiry (see our research note). Orders queue behind quote requests and delivery queries.

Step by step

Seven steps from inbox to sales order.

The first three need nobody but you. They also tell you whether the rest is worth doing.

Give orders one address, such as orders@, and tell customers. Reps forward texts there too, so no order lives only on a phone.
Collect two weeks of real orders and sort them by shape: plain email, PDF from a buying system, spreadsheet, photo, text. The biggest pile is where the keying time goes.
Write down what your desk checks on every order: price, stock, cut-off, minimum order, account on stop.
Build a cross-reference from customers’ codes and descriptions to your product codes. Your order history holds most of it: what the customer wrote, and what was keyed.
Read each order into lines and map it to your sales order fields, as in the next section.
Create a draft sales order in your ERP, through its API or an import, with the flags attached.
Have a person approve each draft. Record the minutes from arrival to approval, and the orders that go out wrong.

PDF purchase order to sales order

What goes where, and what gets checked on the way.

PO number: Goes on the sales order as the customer’s reference (Business Central’s API has an external document number field on the sales order). Checked against orders already entered, so a PO sent twice is caught.
Their part number or description: Mapped to your item code through the cross-reference. A code seen for the first time is flagged, and matched from then on once your team confirms it.
Quantity and unit: Converted to your selling unit. “2 boxes” could be 20 each or 2 packs, and the draft says which it chose.
Price on the PO: Compared with the customer’s agreed price. A difference is flagged and never quietly changed.
Delivery address and date: Matched to the account’s delivery addresses, then checked against your cut-off and delivery days.
Notes and free text: Kept on the draft word for word.

Two ways to read a PDF

Fixed templates suit a few big customers. Everything else needs reading.

A template tells software where each field sits on one customer’s PDF layout. When a few large customers send the same layout every time, templates do the job. Each new layout needs a new template, and plain emails and photos don’t fit one at all.

Reading the order the way a person would copes with any layout and with “same as last week”. It can misread, so every order waits as a draft and anything uncertain is flagged. A handful of big PDFs and a long tail of emails points to reading. More in AI order entry.

What it connects to

Your mailbox and your ERP, through the ways in they already have.

Microsoft 365: Microsoft Graph lets an app you approve read the messages in a mailbox. We would ask for the orders mailbox only.
Gmail: The Gmail API gives an app you approve access to a mailbox, on the same terms.
Business Central: Its API can create a sales order, with an external document number for the customer’s PO. More on Business Central order entry.
SAP Business One: Its Service Layer can create sales orders. More on SAP Business One order entry.
Unleashed: Its API can create sales orders. More on Unleashed and Cin7 order entry.
Anything else: On the first call we check what your system accepts. If it has no way in, the checked draft waits on a screen for keying.

What it costs you today

Count one normal week.

Take one normal week. Count the orders that arrived by email or PDF. Time ten of them from opening the email to the order being saved. Then count the orders that needed a credit note or a second delivery because of a keying mistake.

Put those figures into the order desk calculator. It shows the hours and pounds a year and doesn’t guess at savings. If we work together, those figures become the baseline we report against.

What you get from us

If you would rather we did steps four to seven.

30 minutes

Call with you

Your orders by shape, and the system they go into.
1 hour

Session with your desk

We watch orders being keyed. The same day, a one-page verdict: the KPI, today’s baseline and a fixed price, or a written no.
A fixed number of weeks

Build

Built by us, nothing subcontracted. Your people approve every draft.
Every month

Run and report

We run it and report order processing time and order errors. Stop at any report.

Questions

What people ask about email and PDF orders.

Can PDF purchase orders go into our ERP automatically?: Yes, as drafts, if your ERP accepts orders through an API or an import file. Each PDF is read, mapped to your product codes and checked against prices and stock. A person approves the draft before it is confirmed.
Do we need a separate email address for orders?: It helps. Orders stay out of the general queue, and access can be limited to that one mailbox. Only 7% of the 209 supplier websites we read give one.
What about customers who use their own part numbers?: They are matched through a cross-reference built from your order history. A code seen for the first time is flagged, and once your team confirms it, it is matched from then on.
How do you stop the same order going in twice?: Every PO number is checked against orders already entered for that customer. A repeat is flagged on the draft and not entered.
Can we try it before committing to anything?: Yes. Send us one real order, names and prices blanked if you like. By the end of the next working day you get back the lines we read and what we would flag.

Next step

Send the PDF your desk retypes most.

Send us one order as it arrived and get back the draft it would become. Or book thirty minutes.

elad@harrowell.co

The Open Build. We’ll build one UK supplier an order desk system, free and in public, measured on its own numbers. Everyone who applies gets a one-page read of their own workflow. Applications close at 5pm UK time on Friday 6 November. See the Open Build.