"10 cases of cola." Which pack did they mean?
Drinks move in volume, and most of the detail is in the pack. ManualOut reads the order, works out which pack was meant, and gets it into your ERP without the desk decoding it by hand.
The daily reality
What the order desk is actually dealing with
Pack size is where orders go wrong
24 x 330 or 12 x 500 or a shrink of 6. The customer writes "10 cases of cola" and someone has to know which one they meant.
Volume makes small error rates expensive
At hundreds of lines a day, a 2% typing error rate is a lot of credit notes and a lot of goodwill.
Kegs, empties and deposits
Returns ride along with the order and end up tracked in a spreadsheet beside the ERP.
Promotional pricing changes the line
Promo and contract prices change what the order should be, and the desk applies them from memory.
Where ManualOut fits
What changes once orders read themselves
Packs matched to your product list
Each line resolves to the right pack size and product code. Anything it cannot resolve is flagged rather than guessed.
Account pricing applied automatically
Each customer's price list applies to every order, so promo and contract pricing does not depend on who is on the desk that day.
A confidence score on every order
ManualOut tells you when it is unsure. High-volume automation does not have to mean high-volume silent errors.
See what is actually moving
Top packs and top accounts, from real order data rather than an export.
In the product
A beverage & drinks order, read and checked
On the left is the message, as the customer sent it. On the right is what ManualOut made of it — and what it flagged for a person.
Cornmarket Café Group
10 cases of cola 6 cases lemonade 4 of the sparkling water 2 kegs of the pale ale for tues
The original message stays attached to the order — permanently.
| Product | Unit | Qty | Line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cola Classic 330ml — 24pk24 × 330 or 12 × 500? Both are stocked for this account | CS | 10 | $112.00 |
| Lemonade 330ml — 24pk | CS | 6 | $62.40 |
| Sparkling Water 750ml — 12pk | CS | 4 | $35.60 |
| Pale Ale — 30L kegDeposit applies — returnable | KEG | 2 | $176.00 |
- Order value
- $386.00
- Minimum
- $150.00
- Status
- Minimum met
"10 cases of cola" is not enough to pick from. ManualOut flags the pack ambiguity instead of guessing — a wrong pack size is a credit note, a second trip and a phone call.
- ERP order no.
- SO-4471203
- Synced by
- Automatic
- Synced at
- 14 May 2026, 10:17 PM
- Confidence
- 94%
- Order received
- AI parsing completed
- Validation completed
- Inventory checked
- Synced to ERP
- Order confirmed
How orders arrive
The channel mix in this trade
Email leads on volume, and most of the detail is in the pack.
- Email46%
- WhatsApp26%
- File upload20%
- Voice8%
Illustrative — the typical shape of an order book in this trade, not measured data. Your own mix appears in the dashboard once orders start flowing.
Questions
What buyers in this trade ask
- "10 cases of cola" could mean three different packs. What does it do?
- It flags it. Where the account has ordered one pack consistently, that history resolves it; where it is genuinely ambiguous, the line goes to a person. A wrong pack size is a credit note, a second trip and a phone call — worth ten seconds of someone's attention.
- Does it apply promotional and contract pricing?
- Each account's price list is applied on every order, so promo pricing does not depend on who is on the desk that day.
- What about kegs, empties and deposits?
- Returnable lines are captured as ordered and carry through to the ERP. The deposit logic itself stays where it already lives in your system.
- At our volume, how accurate is it really?
- Every order carries a confidence score, and low-confidence lines are flagged rather than written through. That matters more than a headline accuracy number: at hundreds of lines a day, the danger is not being occasionally wrong — it is being confidently wrong with nobody checking.
Other segments
FMCG distribution
Hundreds of order lines a day. Every one of them typed by hand.
Foodservice & HORECA
The chef sends a voice note at 11pm.
Fresh produce & vegetables
Today's order is nothing like yesterday's.
Seafood & fish
Your customer orders 6 salmon sides. You invoice by the kilo.
Meat & poultry
"Denuded, 220g portions, cryovac" arrives as a WhatsApp message.
Dairy & chilled
The van leaves at 5am. The order desk starts at 8.
See 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.