The order
A distributor receives three orders in one morning: an email, a PDF purchase order and a restocking spreadsheet.
Emailed orders → approved orders
Orders without
the copy-pasting.
Customers send orders however they like: in the email body, as a PDF or as a spreadsheet. Altersoft builds workflows that read them, match each line to your catalogue and prepare the order in your system for approval.
orders-to-system.flowIllustrative example
Before: Copy and paste 40 lines into your system by handWith automation: Confirm one suggested match, then click approve
- Orders arriveEmail, PDF and spreadsheet: 40 lines in total
- AI reads every formatProducts, quantities and delivery details
- Matched to your catalogueEach line checked against products and stock
- One line needs a personAn old product code: a colleague confirms the match
- One click creates the orderThe approved order goes into your system
From inbox to order
Keep the control.
Lose the retyping.
For wholesalers, distributors, manufacturers and suppliers whose team retypes customer orders line by line, looks up product codes and fixes mistakes that slip in along the way.
It works best with a maintained product catalogue and a system that accepts orders through an API, an import file or an agreed export. Unusual or ambiguous orders still go to a person.
Collect the order
Pick up orders from an agreed mailbox, portal download or shared folder, whatever the format. Unreadable files go straight to manual handling.
Read every line
Extract products, quantities, prices, delivery addresses and dates, keeping a link to the original document for each line.
Match to your catalogue
Match lines to your product records, including customer-specific codes and known old part numbers. Check stock and agreed prices where your system allows.
Flag what is uncertain
Unknown codes, unusual quantities and price differences are flagged with a suggested match, never silently guessed.
Approve and create
A person reviews the flagged lines and approves. Only then is the order created in your system, with the source attached.
Illustrative example
A 40-line order.
One code is out of date.
Fictional scenario, not a customer case study or a live demonstration. Outcomes depend on your documents, data and systems.
The draft
Most lines match catalogue records and current stock. One uses a discontinued code, so it is flagged with the suggested replacement product.
The decision
A colleague confirms the replacement and approves. The order is created in the system with the original documents attached.
Systems & safeguards
Built around
your source of truth.
We assess access and data quality before promising a connection. These are integration options to scope, not ready-made connectors included in every project.
Email, portals & files
Start with an agreed mailbox or folder. Scans and handwritten orders need sample testing; anything unreadable goes to manual review.
ERP, stock & pricing
Create draft orders through your system's API or an import file. Check stock and customer prices where available, and define what happens when data is out of date.
Approval & audit trail
Record the source document, matches, corrections and who approved each order, so mistakes can be traced and fixed.
Agree how your data is handled before connecting it
We scope who can access documents, which hosting and AI providers are used, retention and deletion, and what appears in logs. Use redacted samples for discovery. This page does not accept uploads or process any of your data.
Scope, delivery & pricing
Start with one
order channel.
A fixed project quote follows a review of your inputs, systems and approval rules. The website's general starting price is not a price promise for this workflow.
Define a small pilot
Pick one channel, such as a shared orders mailbox, a set of regular customers and your catalogue. Test on past orders, including messy ones, before a supervised rollout.
What affects the cost?
Document variety, data quality, integration access, rule complexity, permissions and volume. We agree delivery dates after this assessment; system access and data cleanup can extend the work.
Make running costs explicit
The proposal should separate the build from hosting, AI usage, third-party licences, maintenance and future changes, specifying what is included and who owns each ongoing task.
Estimate the opportunity using your own numbers
For illustration only: 300 orders a month × 6 minutes less typing per order = 30 hours of capacity. At an assumed £28 per hour, that is £840 of staff time before software costs and exception handling. It is not a measured result or a guaranteed saving; validate the assumptions in a pilot.
See our general pricing approach · Meet the engineer who builds it
Free first chat
Where does order entry
slow your team down?
Tell us roughly how many orders you process, how they arrive and which system they go into. No confidential attachments needed for the first conversation.
Discuss your order workflowOr call +44 7441 113592