Sales order automation for distributors, tested on orders you already keyed.

Today a PO lands in the shared order inbox. Someone finds the account and ship-to, turns each of the customer's part numbers into your item number, converts the quantity to your selling unit, checks the price, and keys the order.

For the test, AI takes copies of those POs and drafts each sales order, header to last line. It enters nothing anywhere. Each draft sits beside the order your team keyed, and any line it could not settle is marked for a person, with the reason.

Three numbers for one item. A line can arrive with the customer's part number, the manufacturer's catalog number, or only a description copied off an old invoice. Distribution ERPs keep a cross-reference for the first. Prophet 21 maps customer part numbers to your items. In Infor's SX.e, a customer product cross-reference can cover a whole account or one ship-to, and a setting can require the customer's number on every order. When there is no entry, or two of your items fit, a person decides, and the draft has to land where they would.

Units of measure. The PO says 500 each; you stock the item in boxes of 100. Wire is priced per thousand feet, conduit ships in 10-foot sticks, and a case holds whatever its manufacturer packs. In SX.e the customer's cross-reference record can note the unit and quantity that customer usually orders, and in NetSuite one item can have separate stock, purchase and sale units. Copy the quantity across unconverted and 500 pieces become 500 boxes.

Supersessions and substitutions. When a manufacturer replaces a part number, your ERP points the old number to the new one. Infor's documentation describes a supersede as a replacement that is interchangeable in most situations and a substitute as a temporary stand-in. Customers reordering from an old PO still write the old number. Your team knows when to swap it quietly and when a substitute needs the buyer's yes. The draft says which it did, line by line.

How the order leaves the building. Will call means the order is staged at the branch for pickup. Tag and hold means it waits in staging until the customer sends shipping details, which helps when a contractor's site isn't ready. A line you don't stock may go out as a drop-ship from the vendor, which Infor calls a direct order. Building-products POs often name a job site instead of a ship-to number on file. Each maps to a code or field in your ERP, and each is tested.

Price, and the lines a person decides. A PO's price may come from an old quote, a contract or a guess. Depending on the account, your team honors it, corrects it or calls the buyer, and the success criteria spell out which. Your reviewer also compares every line the draft marked for a person with the questions your desk actually raised.

A yes from your reviewer, against the success criteria, starts the same job on new POs for about 30 days.

No draft posts to your ERP until a person approves it, and your reviewer keeps the same line-by-line sheet.

Any next job is its own decision, with its own price.