Email order processing

The agent is the software that performs each task. The agent works from the company map, the written description of where each piece of data is held, what each source contains and how each business situation is analysed.

Every email goes through six steps, always in the same order: reading the email, identifying the customer, matching the items, calculating availability, checking credit and preparing the replenishment order, the purchase order the agent proposes when an item falls below minimum stock. No check stops the order: each check records its result on the line and the draft goes for approval in full, with every outstanding query flagged. Each step has its own section below, covering what the agent reads and what it records on the line; after the six steps come the draft order, which brings the six results together, and the approval, after which the agent enters the order in the ERP.

Reading the email means extracting the order lines from the email body, its tables and its attachments. The language model (the artificial‑intelligence program that reads text) extracts each line with the customer's original text and its quantity; a line with illegible or ambiguous text is flagged as an outstanding query and left incomplete.

The language model receives only the email and its attachments, with no data from the ERP or the CRM, and does not match item codes: matching is the next step, with the cross‑reference table.

Identifying the customer means looking up the email's sender in the CRM (the customer management system). The agent compares the sender's email address and domain with the CRM records and takes the customer's price list, the payment terms and the agreed credit limit from the record it finds. If the sender has no record, the order goes ahead with an outstanding query on the customer.

A new contact at a company that already has a record is identified by the company's email domain; in this use case, the agent neither creates nor changes CRM records.

Matching the items means converting each line's item code into the company's own catalogue item. The agent looks up the customer's item code in the cross‑reference table (the table that links each customer's item codes to the company's own) and takes the company's own item and its price on the customer's price list from the ERP. An item code the table does not contain stays as an outstanding query with the original text; the agent does not replace it with the closest match.

The cross‑reference table grows with every approved correction: an item code corrected on one order is matched automatically on the same customer's next order.

Availability is the quantity of each item the company can deliver today, calculated from the stock in the ERP. The agent subtracts the quantity committed to other orders from stock and takes account of purchase orders pending receipt and their dates; the result on the line is the quantity that can be delivered today and the date on which the rest can be delivered.

The ERP's stock field on its own is not availability: it includes stock already committed to other orders. Reading that field as availability leads to confirming orders that cannot be delivered.

The credit check compares the order amount with the customer's available credit. The agent subtracts the credit used and the unpaid invoices from the agreed credit limit and compares the result with the amount of the draft order. An order above the available credit is not stopped: it goes for approval with a credit flag and the amount by which it exceeds the available credit.

The decision on an order with a credit flag rests with Customer Service. If the company sets a rule for those orders, the rule is written into the map and recorded in the approval log.

The replenishment order is the purchase order to the preferred supplier that the agent prepares when an item's stock, after the order, falls below its reorder point (the stock level that triggers a new purchase order). The agent takes the item's minimum stock, reorder point and preferred supplier from the ERP; without that data, the agent flags the item for review and prepares no purchase order.

Sending the purchase order requires approval by Purchasing, separate from the approval of the order by Customer Service.

The draft order is the document that gathers the result of the six steps: the customer identified with their price list and payment terms, each line with its own item, its deliverable quantity and its date, the outstanding queries flagged and the credit flag where it applies. The draft is complete even with outstanding queries; no check stops it.

The draft is what Customer Service sees on opening the approval request: the whole order, with every outstanding query on its line and the reason for every flag.

The draft order reaches the Customer Service inbox as an ‘Approval · order’ request with three actions: approve, change and reject. On approval, the agent enters the order in the ERP as it stands; a change opens the lines for editing before entry; a rejection keeps the order out of the ERP and records the reason.

Three decisions specific to each company determine what the agent proposes.

The rollout begins with building the map of order, customer and stock data and testing the agent on emails whose orders have already been entered, before the agent processes any new email. Hellomatik builds the map from the data the company supplies; the company neither accesses the technical console nor writes the map. The use case has no fixed timetable.

1. 01

   Company map

   Hellomatik defines the use case's sources: the mailbox, the CRM and the ERP data for customers, items, stock, orders, purchase orders and credit. The ERP connection reads data without approval and writes only approved orders.

2. 02

   Cross-references and minimum stock

   Hellomatik loads each customer's item codes from their previous orders, and each item's minimum stock, reorder point and preferred supplier from the ERP. Missing data stays as an outstanding query until the company supplies it.

3. 03

   Testing with orders already entered

   The agent processes emails for orders already entered by hand, and each draft is compared line by line with the original order in the ERP. Every difference is reviewed before a new email is processed.

4. 04

   Inbox and approvals

   The company assigns who approves orders in Customer Service, who approves purchase orders in Purchasing, and which inbox each approval request goes to. Once the approvers are assigned, the agent starts reading the orders mailbox.