Notes on order automation
Arguments we can make honestly, from a product we actually built. No borrowed statistics, no invented case studies — and nothing about the benefits of order management, because the internet has enough of those.
EDI vs AI Order Automation: Which Should You Use?
Not a choice. EDI is the right answer for a handful of large accounts and the wrong one for the other few hundred — here is where the line falls and why.
Read it — 7 min
How AI Reads a Free-Text Order
From "12 ctn cola 330" to a matched line item: what actually happens between an incoming message and a validated sales order, and where it should stop and ask.
8 min read
Your order inbox is the bottleneck
Most distributors take most of their orders by email. It is the least discussed channel in this market and the one where the work actually is.
6 min read
How to Automate WhatsApp Orders Into Your ERP
What it takes to turn WhatsApp messages into ERP sales orders without retyping: the Business API, identifying the account, and handling voice notes and photos.
7 min read
Ordered by piece, invoiced by kilo
Catch weight is why meat and seafood order desks cannot use ordinary tools. Nobody in this market talks about it, which tells you who they were built for.
5 min read
EDI Reaches Ten Accounts. Who Reaches 300?
EDI is excellent, and it reaches almost none of your customers. The gap it leaves is where your order desk actually spends its day.
5 min read
Why B2B orders still arrive as messages
Every distributor has tried to move customers onto a portal. Most have quietly given up. Here is why that keeps happening, and what to do instead.
6 min read
Your cutoff time is only as real as your order desk
You publish a cutoff. Whether it holds depends on how fast someone can type, which is not a policy — it is a queue.
4 min read
Multi-Channel Order Processing for Distributors
Email, PDF, spreadsheet, WhatsApp, voice. Five channels, one item master, one set of account rules — and only the reading stage should differ between them.
7 min read
Minimum Order Values Are a Margin Problem
Most distributors have a minimum order value. In practice it is only as real as the person checking it at 8am.
5 min read
Choosing Order Automation That Fits Your ERP
You are not replacing the ERP. Here is how to tell whether an order automation tool will actually work with the one you have — and what to test before signing.
7 min read
AI Order Processing vs Manual Order Entry
A straight comparison for food and FMCG distributors: what each approach is good at, what it costs, and the cases where a person is still the right answer.
7 min read
What to ask an order automation vendor
Every vendor in this category demos well on a clean PDF. Here are the questions that separate them — including the ones we would rather you didn't ask us.
7 min read
10 Order Processing Problems in FMCG Distribution
The recurring failures on a food and FMCG order desk — the messy channel mix, the item master, the 6am queue, catch weight — and what each one actually needs.
9 min read
Order Errors in FMCG Distribution: Causes and Fixes
Most order errors are not typos. They are matching failures, stale rules and ambiguity resolved silently — each with a different fix and a different cost.
7 min read
Where Order Processing Time Actually Goes
An order takes four to six minutes. Almost none of it is typing. Breaking the time down by stage explains why faster data entry never fixed the order desk.
6 min read
What Manual Order Entry Really Costs You
Vendors quote $8–$15 per order with no methodology behind it. Here is how to work out your own number from figures you already have, in about ten minutes.
7 min read
Why Your Team Still Types Order Emails by Hand
The typing is not a discipline problem or a training gap. It persists because every alternative asked the customer to change, and the customer declined.
6 min read
How FMCG Distributors Automate Manual Order Entry
Manual order entry is five jobs, not one: read, match, price, key in, chase. Automating it means handling each stage — and knowing which still need a person.
8 min readSee it run on one of your own orders
Send us a real order — the messiest one you can find. We will run it live and show you what happens when it works, and when it does not.