// Jan-san distributors · Cleaning supply orders
Cleaning supply orders, converted from the custodian's units into the ones you sell.
A head custodian asks for six rolls of towel, two boxes of large gloves and a case of the big black liners. A plant asks for film and tape the same morning. Someone on your desk works out which item, which pack and which building each line means. In a free AI proof of concept, AI drafts 20 to 30 orders your team already keyed, every quantity converted into your selling unit and every refill matched to the dispenser on site. Your reviewer, the rep or lead who knows these accounts best, compares each draft with the order that was entered.
- Orders tested
- 20 to 30, already keyed
- Orders placed
- None
- Order guides changed
- None
// The one job
From a site's supply request to a sales order in your units
Today the request arrives as an email, a filled-in supply form, a photo of a storeroom list or a line in a contract cleaner's weekly order. A rep or customer service lead finds the building, reads each line against that customer's approved items, converts rolls, boxes and dozens into the unit you sell, picks the refill the building's dispensers take, and keys the order.
For the test, AI takes copies of those requests and drafts each sales order: ship-to, item, pack, quantity in your selling unit with the conversion shown, and a note on every line it could not settle. It changes no list and places no order. Each draft sits beside the order your team entered.
for your reviewer
// The hard parts
Where a supply order changes units
A case is whatever the line says it is. Rocklin Unified lists 5 mil nitrile gloves at 100 to a box and 10 boxes to a case. North Providence's 2025 school list prices 5 mil nitrile gloves per box of 50, 10 boxes to the case. So a case of gloves is 1,000 at one district and 500 at the next. The same North Providence list sells microfiber cloths by the dozen, ice melt in 50-pound bags at 49 to a pallet, some floor pads by the each, and a natural can liner as 25 bags to a roll, 20 rolls to a case, 500 bags in all. A custodian who asks for two rolls of liners wants 50 bags, not two cases. The draft shows the factor it used on every line and sends any request that won't come out to whole selling units back to your rep with both options.
Unit codes don't always mean what they look like. In the X12 standard's unit code list, element 355, CA is case, BX is box, EA is each, RL is roll, DZ is dozen and BG is bag. CS, the abbreviation for case on many supply forms and bid sheets, is cassette in that list, and SK, which a customer may write for a sack of ice melt, is split tanktruck. When an order arrives as an EDI file, the draft reads its codes by the standard; when it comes on a customer's own form, it reads them by that form's key, and it says which one it used.
The dispenser on the wall picks the towel. A Georgia-Pacific dispenser agreement posted online, revised in March 2017, leases its enMotion and SmartStock dispensers to the end user for three years, keeps them as GP's property, requires refills that match the dispenser's brand, and limits refill purchases to distributors GP authorizes. North Providence's list carries a proprietary 8-inch roll towel with a 1.25-inch core. An order for brown towel from a building with leased dispensers can mean only one refill. The draft takes the refill from the dispenser record you send for that ship-to, and a line with no record goes to your rep.
Three thickness scales can share one order. Gloves come in mil, liners like that 30 by 36 natural bag in microns, and stretch film in gauge: Intertape's data sheets give 80 gauge as 0.80 mil, or 20.3 microns. A plant's order for film, tape and corrugated next to its restroom supplies is ordinary for a distributor that carries both lines. The draft keeps each item's thickness in the scale your item file uses and never treats a gauge as a mil.
Some items can't ship to some addresses. In New York, since January 1, 2022, no store, retail or wholesale, may sell, offer for sale or distribute disposable foodservice containers made of expanded polystyrene foam; rigid #6 polystyrene is not covered, and certain foam cold storage containers joined the ban on January 1, 2026. Since December 31, 2022, state law also bars distributing or selling paper and plant-fiber food packaging with intentionally added PFAS. A foam clamshell or a fiber bowl on an order for a New York ship-to is held for your team. Your reviewer, usually the customer service lead for facility accounts, checks conversions, refills, ship-to rules and every off-list line.
// What you send
What the test needs from your order desk
20 to 30 keyed orders
Each request as it arrived, by email, form or photo, paired with the sales order your team keyed from it. Include school, contract cleaner and plant accounts, and a few that needed a phone call.
Your item file, every unit
Item numbers with each, box, roll, case and pallet quantities, bag counts per roll, thickness and its scale, so every conversion can be checked against your own records.
Each account's lists
Approved item lists by building, the ship-to list, and dispenser records showing which refill each site takes. They are copies; nothing on them changes.
No logins, NDA first
We never sign in to your ERP, your e-commerce site or a customer's purchasing system, and the NDA is signed before the first file moves. Can't share real orders? Your reviewer helps us build look-alikes.
// Before it starts
Four calls the owner makes first
These are settled before a single request is read.
- Your reviewer
- Chosen by the owner, often the lead rep or customer service lead for facility accounts
- Off-list items
- Who decides when a request isn't on a building's approved list
- Odd quantities
- What happens when a request doesn't make whole selling units
- Success criteria
- Written down: which fields count, and how unit errors are scored
- Sample
- Picked by your reviewer, mixed accounts and messy requests included
- Price
- A range for running orders live
- NDA
- Signed ahead of any file
// How it's judged
Our drafts beside the orders your team keyed
| On the same 20 to 30 orders | What your team keyed | The AI draft |
|---|---|---|
| Building and ship-to | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
| Each line matched to your item and pack | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
| Quantity converted into your selling unit, factor shown | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
| Unit codes read by the right key | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
| Refill matched to the dispenser on site | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
| Lines off the building's approved list marked | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
| Foam and fiber foodservice items held for restricted ship-tos | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
| Lines left for a person, and why | Measured on your orders | Measured on your orders |
// After a yes
About 30 days on new requests, each approved
A yes from your reviewer against the success criteria starts the same job on new site requests for about 30 days.
Nothing reaches your ERP until a person on your team approves the order, and approved lists stay exactly as the customer set them.
A next job is its own decision, priced on its own.
// What could come next
Possible next jobs, in order
- 01Next
Usage reports by building
Usage by site and item for a contract cleaner or facilities director, built from invoice lines, with sudden jumps marked for the rep.
- 02Then
Backorder and substitute notices
Notices to the site drafted when a line is short, naming the item your rep proposes instead, for the rep to approve and send.
- 03Later
Dispenser record cleanup
Refill orders compared with the dispenser records for each building, with sites whose orders don't fit their dispensers listed for a visit.
// One hard limit
It never places an order and never changes an order guide.
The test reads copies and writes drafts on a review sheet. It never changes a customer's order guide or approved list, never places an order, never submits a bid and never sets a contract price. A person on your team decides every line, and nobody at a school, a contract cleaner or a plant hears from the test.
This job has its own price: a range before the proof of concept, then a fixed price ahead of any signature.
What sets the range: how many hand-keyed requests reach the desk each month, how many buildings your largest accounts order for, and how many lines a typical request carries.
// Questions
Order desk questions from jan-san houses
Does this replace our EDI or our e-commerce site?
What happens when a custodian orders by the each and we sell by the case?
Can it tell which towel fits which dispenser?
Will it change a customer's approved product list?
We also ship film, tape and cartons to plants. Are those lines in scope?
Rob Eason, founder
// Book a call with Rob
Bring a week of site supply requests.
Thirty minutes with Rob, built around three answers: your company and role, the accounts whose orders you'd test, and about how many hand-keyed requests your desk sees in a month. Hold every order until the NDA is signed.
- Co-owned a 60-employee financial services firm and sold his share to his partner.
- Ran GOSO Technologies, a Boston solar company rated 5/5 across 24 Google reviews.
- 5/5 across 83 reviews in HighLevel's Certified Admin Directory.
- 4.3/5 from 6 Google reviews of Massmarket AI.
- Every directory and Google review, critical ones included, is shown word for word at massmarket.ai/reviews.
- Takes every proof-of-concept call himself.