How to Automate Email and PDF Orders into Epicor Prophet 21
Email and PDF are the hardest order channels to handle for Prophet 21. Here is how distributors read them automatically and prepare clean P21 sales orders.
For most Prophet 21 distributors, the biggest pile of manual work is email. Orders arrive in the body of a message, as a PDF built on the customer's own template, or as a spreadsheet that is never laid out the same way twice. Portals and EDI get the attention, but email is where the volume actually is — and it is the channel that still gets retyped every morning.
Why email and PDF are hard to automate
Email looks digital, but it is not structured. A PDF purchase order is a picture of an order, not data. The same customer might send a clean spreadsheet one day and a photographed order sheet the next. That variety is exactly why this work has stayed manual: a person is very good at reading intent from a messy document, and simple import rules are not.
What reading an email order actually involves
To turn an emailed order into a Prophet 21 sales order, you have to read the body and the attachment together — an order split between a note and a spreadsheet is still one order. Then you extract the fields P21 needs:
- The customer and their PO number
- Each product, including the customer's own part number or SKU
- Quantities and the unit of measure
- Delivery information and any special instructions
AI extraction handles this variety far better than fixed templates, because it reads the layout each customer uses instead of expecting one format. That is the core of ManualOut's Prophet 21 order automation: the email body, the PDF and the spreadsheet all become the same structured order.
Matching, not just reading
Extracting the text is only half the job. The customer's "CB-200, 4 cases" has to become the right Prophet 21 part number and selling unit, at that customer's contract price. Reading without matching just moves the typing around; the value is a line that is already resolved to your P21 records.
Keeping a person on the exceptions
Not every emailed order is clean. When a product cannot be matched confidently, or a quantity looks off, the order should be flagged for review rather than pushed into Prophet 21. That is what makes automating email safe: the machine reads and matches, a person approves what is uncertain.
If you want the wider picture first, read how to automate sales order entry in Epicor Prophet 21, or book a demo and send us one of your own emailed orders to see what gets prepared for P21.
Epicor and Prophet 21 are trademarks of Epicor Software Corporation. ManualOut is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Epicor Software Corporation.
Frequently asked questions
Can ManualOut process emailed orders for Prophet 21?
Yes. It reads the email body and its PDF, Excel or CSV attachments, extracts the order lines, matches them to your P21 records and prepares the sales order. Customers keep emailing the same address.
Can it read PDF purchase orders?
Yes, including templated and scanned PDFs. It pulls out the customer, PO number, products, quantities and units, then matches them to your Prophet 21 catalogue.
Do customers have to change how they send orders?
No. The point of reading email and PDF automatically is that customers keep ordering the way they already do — the automation happens on your side.