Orders arrive by email, PDF, Excel and portals. Someone then enters them into the ERP line by line. At INSPIRED Pet Nutrition, this took 15 to 30 minutes per order.
Many companies postpone improvements because they assume the ERP must be replaced first. Usually, the bottleneck is not what the ERP does, but how unstructured orders enter the system.
Order processing can therefore often be automated without a migration. You add a controlled intake and let the ERP continue to do what it does best.
Want to determine which workflow in your organisation is the best candidate first? Read Automating business processes with AI: where do you start?.
The bottleneck sits before the ERP
An ERP manages inventory, orders, invoicing and delivery, among other things. It needs structured, checked input to do so.
A customer order in an email or PDF is not yet structured input. Product codes, quantities, delivery addresses, prices and notes must first be recognised and checked. This translation step is exactly where time is lost and errors occur.
In this situation, automation does not mean replacing the ERP. It means organising the work before the ERP differently.
How AI order processing works
An AI agent such as OrderPilot performs four steps:
- Read. The agent processes order emails and attachments such as PDFs, CSVs, Excel files and photographs.
- Recognise. It extracts the customer, products, quantities, addresses, PO numbers and other relevant information from the order.
- Check. It validates the input against customer agreements, product data and agreed rules.
- Prepare. It converts the checked information into ERP-ready input, even when a standard API is unavailable.
You determine in advance what the agent may read and write, which checks apply and when human approval is required.
Normal orders continue, exceptions go to your team
Not every order should continue without intervention. An unknown product code, different price, missing delivery address or unlikely quantity requires attention.
OrderPilot does not stop such an order without explanation, nor does it let it pass blindly. The exception goes to an employee with the information needed to review, adjust or approve it.
The standard flow becomes faster. Your team remains in control of situations where experience or customer knowledge matters.
What does your ERP continue to do?
The ERP remains the system for inventory, order registration, invoicing and delivery. OrderPilot changes the intake.
The technical route depends on the landscape. It may be an API, an existing connector, structured file exchange or custom development. OrderPilot works with systems including Business Central, Odoo, NetSuite and SAP.
Migration only becomes relevant when the existing foundation demonstrably blocks further improvement, not because AI requires it by default.
Proven at INSPIRED Pet Nutrition
INSPIRED Pet Nutrition is a British pet food brand. A seven-person service team processed every customer order manually and spent 15 to 30 minutes on each one.
OrderPilot reads the order emails and attachments, checks the customer, product, quantities and discrepancies, and prepares the input for the ERP. The team remains responsible for exceptions.
In this specific workflow, processing became 9 times faster and processing costs per order fell by 60 to 80 per cent. A working solution, including a dedicated interface, AI engine and ERP integrations, was live within six weeks.
“What I like about rb2? They don’t just build what you ask for, they challenge your thinking. What they build works, is measurable and is future-proof.”
Sander van Duijn, Digital Transformation Expert, INSPIRED
Read the full INSPIRED case.
Measure before you automate
Record at least four numbers:
- minutes of manual work per order;
- orders per week;
- percentage of orders requiring rework;
- lead time from receipt to confirmation.
Use the same definition and data source each time. Only then can you demonstrate what has actually improved.
Want to calculate the annual cost? Read What does manual order processing cost?.
How to determine whether OrderPilot fits
In a free 30-minute conversation, we assess whether your order process has enough volume, repetition and ownership to investigate further.
If it is promising, the paid Prove session follows. Together with the people who know the work, we examine the workflow, exceptions, data, systems and the outcome that matters. The result is to build, improve the prerequisites first, or not proceed.
A concrete build plan and separate proposal with a fixed build fee only follow after a positive build decision.