Confidential
The Problem
Receiving sales orders via email is highly problematic for an enterprise, primarily because it necessitates manual data entry into core business systems (like an ERP or accounting software). This manual process introduces severe risks related to accuracy, efficiency, cost, and customer experience.
High Risk of Human Error
Data Entry Mistakes: The single biggest issue is the potential for typos when an employee manually transcribes order details (product codes, quantities, pricing, customer addresses) from the email or an attached PDF into the system. Even a small error can lead to shipping the wrong item, billing incorrectly, or failing to deliver on time. Inconsistent Data: Orders may arrive in varying formats, making it easy to miss crucial information or misinterpret terms, leading to discrepancies between the original order and the data entered into the system.
Operational Inefficiency and Delays
Time-Consuming: Employees waste valuable time on the tedious, repetitive task of manual data entry, diverting their attention from higher-value activities like customer service or sales strategy. Slow Processing: Manual entry creates a delay in the order-to-cash cycle. Orders cannot be fulfilled until they are correctly entered, slowing down the entire supply chain, from inventory allocation to shipping. Scalability Issues: As the business grows, the volume of email orders increases, requiring the hiring of more staff just to handle data entry—a non-scalable and costly approach.
Poor Customer Experience
Delayed Confirmations: Slow manual processing means customers wait longer to receive order confirmations and shipping updates. Incorrect Shipments: Errors in the order lead directly to incorrect or late shipments, which severely damages customer trust and loyalty.
The solution
Automated Order Capture: Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and AI we automatically extract data from documents (like emailed PDFs, Doc, Excel, etc.) and transfer it directly into the ERP system, minimizing human intervention.
The heart of the system is an intelligent agent that connects to an IMAP server, actively monitoring designated inboxes for emails containing sales orders. Once it detects a relevant email, the agent proceeds to download attachments potentially containing order details.
The agent's backend is robustly developed in Clojure, a language that provides high concurrency and resilience, ideal for asynchronous processing and data flow management. Once the attachment has been retrieved, the system employs an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) service to convert any scanned image or PDF into editable text. This text is then processed by a large language model (LLM) like OpenAI, which is trained to intelligently identify and extract specific fields from the sales order, such as order numbers, product details, quantities, prices, and customer data.
Finally, the extracted data is automatically structured and formatted in JSON, making it easy to integrate with other business systems, such as enterprise resource planning systems.
- Deployment in AWS.
- A back-end with a hexagonal and modular architecture developed in Clojure.
- An email classifier that intelligently identifies and filters incoming emails, distinguishing which ones contain relevant sales orders for automated processing.
- Multimodal and multi-LLM
The impact
The transition from manual email-based sales order entry to AI-powered automation creates a profound positive impact on enterprise operations and finances. Primarily, AI automation, through Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), achieves near-perfect accuracy by eliminating human data entry errors. It instantly extracts, validates, and structures order information—SKUs, pricing, and terms—from varied documents (like emails and PDFs), dramatically reducing costly mistakes, chargebacks, and manual rework. This instantaneous processing accelerates the entire Order-to-Cash (O2C) cycle from days to minutes, directly improving cash flow and allowing the enterprise to handle massive increases in order volume without adding headcount, making the process highly scalable and cost-effective.
Strategically, AI transforms the sales order process into a data-driven function. By instantly capturing every order detail and syncing it with the ERP, the system provides real-time visibility into current demand, preventing the financial losses associated with overselling and stockouts. This continuous data stream feeds predictive analytics for more accurate inventory management and optimal order routing, significantly lowering logistics costs. Furthermore, the automation delivers a superior customer experience (CX) through fast order confirmations and proactive, accurate status updates, which builds loyalty and provides a competitive advantage over rivals still dealing with the slow, error-prone inefficiencies of the manual inbox.
