Role
Order management
How many people touch one order before it goes into fulfilment? The client sends it however suits them - by email, in a PDF, by phone. The system accepts only one form, and between the two stands a person, retyping.
Intro call
Four questions we would start with
Retyping is the part of the work nobody defends - and yet it takes the largest part of the day. The questions below are there to establish how much exactly, and where the errors arise.
How many people touch one order before it goes into fulfilment?
Every handover is a place where information can be lost or changed. With three people in the chain nobody knows any more whether what was agreed with the client survived to the end.
What happens when an order arrives incomplete?
If the answer is "we put it aside and call", it is worth counting how many orders are in limbo at any moment - and how long the client waits without knowing they are waiting for anything.
How quickly do you find out that a wrong quantity or a wrong item code was entered?
On a good day - at picking. On a worse one - from the client, after delivery. The cost of an error grows with every stage at which it went unnoticed.
Who notices first that a client changed an order after placing it?
The change usually arrives by email to one person. If that person happens to be on holiday, the change reaches the warehouse after the fact - or not at all.
We take over the retyping, you keep settling the exceptions
Reading the order, recognising the lines and preparing the entry into the system is done by the machine. Every order that is unusual, incomplete or departs from the history goes to a person.
- Nothing enters the system without approval. - The prepared entry waits for approval. For an order consistent with the client's history that is seconds, for an unusual one it is normal work as before.
- A doubt always goes to a person. - An illegible quantity, an ambiguous item code, a discrepancy with the price list - the system does not guess, it raises its hand.
- The source stays visible. - With every line you can see which part of the client's document it comes from. That is the difference between checking and reading the whole thing again.
Scope
What can be taken off order management
Twenty example tasks. Each one has a human approval point. Below is a selection, and the scope we fit to your process.
Taking in an order
- Reading an order from an email, a PDF, a spreadsheet or a form into one form
- Recognising the lines by code, name or the client's description (doubtful: to a person)
- Assigning the order to the right client and commercial terms
- Recording the time of arrival, whatever the channel
- Acknowledgement to the client (approved by: the specialist)
Verification and gaps
- Pointing out lines that are incomplete or ambiguous
- Comparing prices with the client's price list and flagging departures
- Checking the credit limit and stock before acceptance
- Preparing a question to the client about a missing detail (sent by: the specialist)
- The list of orders waiting for the client's answer, with the waiting time
Entering into the system
- Preparing the entry with lines, quantities and terms (approved by: the specialist)
- Flagging orders unusual against the client's history
- Detecting a duplicate order
- Checking the entry against the source document
- Assigning a delivery date under the rules
Communication, changes, cancellations
- Confirming the date to the client once it is in fulfilment
- Recording a change to the order with exactly what changed
- Notifying the warehouse and sales about a change (decision to accept the change: the specialist)
- Handling cancellations with the reason recorded
- A summary of the orders changed most often - material for a conversation with the client
A day's work
Today
- The morning is the inbox: orders in five formats, each to be retyped
- At an illegible line you put the order aside and come back to it in the afternoon
- You check prices in the price list by hand, line by line
- You learn about a duplicate order when the client calls in surprise
- A change arrives by email and depends on somebody noticing it
- At the end of the day you do not know how many orders are waiting for a client's answer
With AI assistance
- The orders wait prepared for approval, whatever form they arrived in
- An illegible line is flagged straight away, together with the part of the document to look at
- You see departures from the price list on receipt, not at invoicing
- A duplicate order reports itself before it reaches fulfilment
- A change is recorded as a change, with what it was before
- The list of orders waiting on the client is always at hand, with the waiting time
- Lead time
the order reaches the warehouse the same day
retyping stops being the bottleneck between the client and the system
- The cost of a mistake
the error surfaces on receipt, not after delivery
the check against the source document happens straight away
- Staffing at peak
the season does not need people added just to retype
the number of orders grows, not the hours of retyping
- A record of what was agreed
it is known who changed what in an order and when
a change is recorded as an event rather than overwriting
We start with one channel and one group of clients, not with all of them at once.
- Step 1
We count what comes in
We take two weeks of orders and split them by form and repeatability. It usually turns out most of the volume comes through one channel from a dozen or so clients - and that is where we start.
- Step 2
One channel, manual approval
Reading and preparing the entry for that one channel. Every order goes through approval, including the obvious ones - at this stage we are building trust, not saving time.
- Step 3
Exceptions and rules
Only once the real exceptions are known do we set what can go the fast route and what always goes to a person. That list comes from your orders, not from assumptions.
- Step 4
Extending
Further channels and handling changes. Changes are deliberately last - they are the hardest part of the process and need a working foundation.
Common questions
Questions that come up at the first meeting
Who is accountable if the automation misreads a quantity and the wrong delivery goes out?
The person who approved the entry - and that is why they see, with every line, the part of the document it comes from. Ambiguous lines are not filled in by guesswork, they are flagged. A system that guesses a quantity is worse than no system.
How many people in order management will stop being needed?
We do not assume anyone will. Repetitive orders enter by themselves, but the exceptions remain - and it is the exceptions that take the most time and need somebody who knows the client and the product. A team that is not retyping typical orders has time for the unusual ones and for talking to the client, instead of replying two days later. How you translate that into headcount is up to you.
Does this fall under the AI Act?
Taking in orders is not a high-risk use - nobody is being assessed here. The obligations concern transparency and oversight. Separately, the usual rules on processing the contact data in orders apply.
Still have a question that is not here? Book a call
Next step
How many orders are waiting to be retyped right now?
We will show you what the team's day looks like when the retyping disappears and what remains is settling the exceptions.