Turn incoming customer orders into ERP sales orders without retyping them
Your customer has already placed the order. But before your warehouse can act on it, someone still has to turn it into a sales order in your ERP. ManualOut reads customer orders from email, WhatsApp, PDFs and spreadsheets, matches them against your product and customer data, checks your rules and creates the sales order — so your team only gets involved when something actually needs a decision.
From inbox to ERP
“Orange 250ml x24 — 5 CTN, Mineral Water 500ml — 10 CTN, deliver Thursday.”
- Customer identified
- Lines matched to your SKUs
- Units and pack sizes resolved
- Customer price applied
- Minimum, cutoff and delivery checked
- Warehouse or entity routed
Sales order created in your ERP
What is sales order automation?
Sales order automation uses software to capture a customer's incoming order and complete the work required to create a sales order in the seller's ERP, with far less manual entry. For a distributor, it usually starts when a customer sends a purchase order, email, spreadsheet or WhatsApp message.
The automation then identifies the customer, reads the requested products and quantities, matches them to your product records, applies the relevant order rules, flags anything that needs attention and creates the sales order in the ERP. The goal is not simply to extract text from a document — it is to produce a sales order your operations team can actually use.
The customer placed the order. Why are you entering it again?
This is the part of distribution that often stays manual even after the ERP has been implemented. A customer sends “5 CTN Orange Juice 24×250ml, 10 CTN Mineral Water 500ml, deliver Thursday.” Your team understands exactly what it means. Your ERP does not.
Someone still has to determine which customer sent it, which SKUs those descriptions refer to, what unit of measure to use, which price applies, where the stock should come from and whether Thursday is a valid delivery date. Only then can the sales order be created. That gap — between customer order received and sales order created — is exactly what sales order automation is designed to remove.
How automated sales order processing works
- 1
Customer orders arrive
Orders come through the channels customers already use — the email body, a PDF attachment, Excel or CSV, a WhatsApp message, a photo or scanned order, or an uploaded file. Customers do not need to learn a new ordering system just because you want to automate your back office.
- 2
The order is read
ManualOut turns the incoming request into structured order information — customer, customer PO number, product, SKU or customer reference, quantity, pack size, unit of measure, delivery information and order notes. Different customers can use completely different layouts and ordering styles.
- 3
Each line is matched to your product data
This is where automation has to do more than extraction. A customer might write “Orange 250ml x24” while your ERP holds “OJ-250-24 | Orange Juice 250ml 24 Pack”, and another may use its own internal product code. ManualOut resolves each order line to the product your ERP understands, and flags the line rather than silently sending it to the wrong SKU when the match is uncertain.
- 4
The order is checked against your rules
A correctly extracted order can still be a wrong sales order. Before creating it, ManualOut applies the rules your distribution business uses, so issues are caught before they become a problem downstream:
- Customer-specific pricing
- Minimum order requirements
- Delivery charges
- Order cutoff times
- Product and UOM rules
- Company or legal entity
- Warehouse
- Delivery requirements
- 5
The sales order is created in your ERP
When the order is ready, ManualOut creates the corresponding sales order in your connected ERP. The ERP stays the system where your business manages the order — and if it rejects the order, the error is surfaced for correction instead of disappearing inside an integration.
- 6
Your team handles the exceptions
Some orders need judgement — an unknown item, two possible SKU matches, an order below the minimum, an unclear pack size, unavailable stock, or delivery instructions that conflict with your rules. Those reach a person. Straightforward orders do not have to wait behind them.
Where sales order automation actually earns its keep
Reading “10 cartons” is easy. Knowing exactly which carton the customer means, at which price, from which warehouse, is the hard part — and it depends on data your business already holds, not just the incoming document.
Product matching
Distribution catalogues are full of similar names, multiple pack sizes, different units, customer-specific references and old descriptions customers keep using. Each requested item has to be matched to the record that will appear on the ERP sales order — and when a confident match cannot be made, the safer outcome is review.
Apply the customer's price, not just the product
Two customers can order exactly the same SKU and pay different prices, so the correct sales order depends on more than the incoming document. ManualOut uses the customer's configured pricing and order rules while preparing the order — moving it from “we extracted the PO” to “the order is ready for the ERP.”
Handle pack sizes and units of measure
A product may be sold as each, pack, carton, case, kilogram, tray or bottle. A customer ordering “10” is not enough information if ten pieces and ten cartons mean very different things. Automation has to connect the requested quantity with the UOM your ERP expects.
Apply minimum-order and delivery rules before ERP entry
A sales order can contain perfectly valid SKUs and still need attention — below the customer's minimum, past the delivery cutoff, an impossible delivery date, or a delivery charge to apply. ManualOut checks these configured rules as part of the workflow, before fulfilment begins.
Sales order automation across multiple warehouses
A distributor with one warehouse can often rely on straightforward routing. A distributor with several cannot. The correct sales order may depend on customer location, product availability, warehouse assignment, company, legal entity, branch or delivery location — and in some operations, the same incoming order involves products supplied from different places.
ManualOut can use these routing rules before sending the order into the ERP, which reduces the need for employees to remember where every order or product should go.
What happens when the AI is not sure? It should say so.
Sales order automation should not mean automatically approving every interpretation. There are orders where uncertainty is normal — a misspelled product, a line that could refer to two SKUs, an unclear UOM, a price that does not match the expected rule, or a note that needs a person to interpret.
ManualOut routes those cases for review while letting clear orders continue. The aim is not automation at any cost. It is reducing routine work without hiding uncertainty.
Sales order automation vs sales order management software
The terms sound similar, but they describe different things — and for a distributor that already runs an ERP, the difference matters.
Sales order management software
This usually manages sales orders across a wider lifecycle: creating orders, allocating inventory, fulfilment, shipment management, order tracking, invoicing, returns and customer updates. Many ERPs and order-management systems already do these jobs.
Sales order automation software
This focuses on eliminating the manual work required to turn an incoming customer request into a correct sales order. It sits earlier in the process — customer order → read → match → validate → ERP sales order. If you already have an ERP, replacing it may not solve the real problem; getting orders into it might. ManualOut is designed for that layer.
Sales order automation and EDI
EDI already automates order exchange for many trading relationships. If a customer sends a properly configured EDI order, there may be very little manual entry to remove. The problem is everything outside EDI — the emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, WhatsApp messages, photos and other unstructured orders that return to the same manual process EDI was supposed to eliminate.
AI sales order processing can complement an existing EDI setup by automating orders from the customers and channels that are not connected through EDI. You do not have to choose between EDI and AI order automation; they solve different parts of the same order-entry problem.
What should sales order automation software actually do?
There is an important difference between reading an order and processing an order. When comparing solutions, ask what happens after the data has been extracted — if most of the work still happens after the “automation” has finished, the order-entry problem has not really been removed.
Capture
Bring customer orders in from the channels where they actually arrive.
Understand
Extract products, quantities, pack sizes, customer references and delivery information.
Match
Resolve customer descriptions and codes to your own products and SKUs.
Validate
Check the relevant customer, pricing and operational rules.
Route
Determine the correct company, warehouse or destination when required.
Handle exceptions & create the order
Clearly identify what it cannot resolve, and move everything else into the ERP as a sales order without asking someone to type it all again.
Why distributors automate sales order entry
Process orders sooner
An order does not need to wait for someone to notice it in an inbox before processing can begin.
Reduce repetitive ERP entry
Routine product and quantity entry no longer has to consume the same amount of staff time.
Catch issues earlier
Product, quantity and rule problems can be surfaced before they move deeper into fulfilment.
Keep order processing consistent
Important customer and operational rules do not depend entirely on who happens to process the order that day.
Handle growing order volumes
More incoming orders do not have to create the same increase in manual typing.
Give the order team better work
Staff spend more time resolving exceptions and helping customers than transferring data between systems.
Keep the ERP you already use
Sales order automation should not require replacing the system that already manages your inventory, customers, pricing and fulfilment. ManualOut works with the ERP as the system of record — using your existing customer, product and order information while processing the incoming order, then creating the finished sales order in the ERP:
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Dynamics 365 Business Central
- SAP
- SAP Business One
- Oracle
- NetSuite
- Epicor Prophet 21
- Odoo
- Acumatica
- Sage
- QuickBooks
- Custom & in-house ERP
The order the customer sent, the sales order you create
Every sales order in your ERP started life as something a customer sent you — an email, a PDF, a WhatsApp message, a spreadsheet. Sales order automation is the work in between: reading what the customer asked for and creating the order your operations team can fulfil.
If you think about that incoming document as the customer's purchase order, the companion page on purchase order automation for distributors covers the same flow from the document side. And when most of those orders arrive by email, email order automation goes deeper on that channel.
Use one of your real customer orders
A perfect sample document is not a useful test. Take an order your team actually has to process — an awkward PDF, a spreadsheet full of customer product codes, an email with five order lines in the body, a WhatsApp order — and we will show you how ManualOut reads it, matches the products, applies your rules, prepares the sales order for your ERP, and what happens when something cannot be processed confidently.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is sales order automation for distributors?
It is the use of software to turn incoming customer orders into ERP sales orders with less manual data entry. The system captures the order, reads the requested products and quantities, matches them to product data, applies the relevant business rules and creates or prepares the sales order in the ERP.
How does automated sales order entry work?
It begins when a customer order is received through email, PDF, spreadsheet, WhatsApp or another connected channel. The software extracts the order information, identifies the customer, matches product lines, validates the relevant rules and passes the completed sales order to the ERP. Orders with unclear or conflicting information are sent to a person for review.
What is the difference between sales order automation and manual order entry?
With manual order entry, an employee reads the customer's order and enters the products, quantities and other details into the ERP by hand. Sales order automation performs much of that capture, matching, validation and ERP-entry work automatically, leaving employees to concentrate on exceptions.
How can ManualOut help distributors with sales order processing?
ManualOut captures customer orders from channels such as email, WhatsApp, PDFs and spreadsheets. It extracts the order details, matches products and pack sizes, applies configured customer and operational rules, and creates the sales order in the connected ERP. Orders that need a decision are flagged for review.
Can sales order automation read PDF orders?
Yes. PDF purchase orders can be read and converted into structured order information before the corresponding sales order is created in the ERP.
Can sales order automation process orders received by email?
Yes. Orders can be processed from email attachments as well as from order information written directly in the email body.
Can sales order automation handle customer-specific product codes?
Yes. An AI sales order processing system can map customer descriptions or customer-specific references to your own product and SKU records. When a reliable match cannot be made, the line is sent for review instead of being guessed.
Can sales order automation work with multiple warehouses?
Yes. When warehouse and routing rules are available to the automation system, the appropriate warehouse, branch, company or location can be assigned as part of sales order processing.
Is sales order automation the same as an ERP?
No. An ERP manages a much wider part of the business. Sales order automation handles the work required to convert incoming customer orders into sales orders that the ERP can then process.
Does sales order automation replace EDI?
No. EDI can keep processing customers that already send structured electronic orders. AI sales order automation handles the email, PDF, spreadsheet, WhatsApp and other orders that remain outside the EDI workflow.
What is AI sales order processing?
AI sales order processing uses artificial intelligence to interpret customer orders that are not already supplied as structured system data. It can identify order information, understand product descriptions, match products and flag uncertain information before a sales order is sent to the ERP.
What should I look for in sales order automation software for distributors?
Look beyond basic document extraction. It should capture the order, match customer product descriptions to your products, handle units and pack sizes, validate the relevant pricing and order rules, manage exceptions and create the final order in your ERP.
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.