Every WhatsApp order in one place

This page covers the connection: what ManualOut needs from your WhatsApp setup, what it captures, and how each number is routed. For how those messages become ERP sales orders — grouping multi-message orders, reading photos and voice notes, and checking your rules — see WhatsApp order automation.

ManualOut connects through the official WhatsApp Business Platform, Meta's interface for businesses to receive and send messages, rather than the WhatsApp Business app on a phone. That is the difference between orders arriving at a handset someone has to remember to check and orders arriving at the business — captured as they come in, day or night, whoever is on shift.

You need three things: a Meta Business account, a phone number for the platform, and OTP verification of that number. We go through the setup with you, including which number your customers should keep messaging. Verification is usually the step that takes longest, so it is worth starting early.

Connect as many numbers as your business runs — a national order line, a regional depot line, a key-account line. Each number can be routed to its own company and warehouse, and all of them feed one review list alongside your email orders, so no channel becomes one person's private responsibility.

Typed messages, photos, documents and voice notes are all captured, the customer is identified by their number, and the original messages stay beside the order created from them. If you are still deciding whether to automate WhatsApp at all, our guide to automating WhatsApp orders into your ERP covers the decisions to make first.