AI order entry from email: from inbox to draft order, and the errors to catch

An order that arrives as an email, a PDF, a spreadsheet or a photo of a handwritten list becomes a draft order in three steps: the text is read into fields (customer, their reference, date, address and each line as written), each line is matched to your catalogue and that customer’s prices, and a person checks the doubtful lines before confirming. The AI proposes; a person confirms. There are five typical errors to catch: the customer’s own reference taken for a code, the unit (box, piece, roll or metre), a price that isn’t theirs, a line that fits two products and a discontinued code.

Try it with your own lines

With the eight example lines you get three “Match”, four “Check” and one “No match”. The four doubtful ones are exactly the errors in this guide: a cable without the roll length (two possible products), a panel with the customer’s own reference and a price that isn’t theirs, a discontinued tube code, and 800 anchors with no unit, which could be 800 boxes or 8. The 1/2" tube does not match because the catalogue only has it in 3/8", and a size is never approximated. Change the lines or type your own: every result says why.

From email to draft order in three steps

1. Read. The email and its attachments are turned into fields: who is ordering, their order or job number, the date they want, the delivery address and each line as written. In a thread, the order is the one in the latest message, not the one quoted underneath.
2. Match. Each line is looked up in your catalogue: first by code, then by words and sizes. The quantity is converted into the unit you sell in, and the price comes from that customer’s price list, not from the email.
3. Check and confirm. The result is a draft, not an order. Every line carries a confidence label and its reason; a person fixes the doubtful ones and confirms.

It pays to keep reading and matching apart. Reading messy text is where a language model helps; deciding which product it is and at what price can be done with rules that show their reasons and cannot invent anything that is not in your catalogue.

Email, PDF, Excel or a photo

• The email body. Free text, sometimes with a signature, the previous order quoted below and an “if you don’t have it, the other one”. You have to tell the order apart from the comments.
• A PDF. It may be the purchase order printed by the customer’s own system: a table with their codes and their order number. That number is not one of your codes.
• An Excel or CSV file. It can be read cell by cell as a table. Watch for the totals row and for sheets that are not the order.
• A photo of a handwritten list. It is read as an image. A 1 that looks like a 7, or a line read with the code from the row next to it, are typical errors: whatever comes from a photo deserves an extra look.

The five errors to catch before confirming

1. The customer’s reference taken for a code. “Our ref PO-2231” is the customer’s number for their order or job. It belongs on the order (they will ask for it on the delivery note and the invoice), but it should never be looked up in your catalogue.
2. The unit. “800 anchors” can be 800 pieces (8 boxes of 100) or 800 boxes. “45 m of profile” is 7.5 bars of 6 m, so 8. “Cable 300” can be 300 metres or 300 rolls. Structured order messages avoid this with codes: in the UN/CEFACT trade vocabulary, MTR is the metre and H87 the piece, and each package type has its own, such as BX for box, RO for roll, CL for coil and BR for bar. An email carries none of that: the conversion into your unit has to be written down and visible.
3. A price that isn’t theirs. The customer copies the price from an old quote, the general list or another supplier. The order price comes from their price list; if the email shows a different one, the line is flagged and someone decides. If your prices follow a metal, a price from an old email can be weeks out of date (how to build a metal-indexed price list).
4. A line with two options. “Cable 3x2.5” without saying whether it is the 100 m roll or the 50 m roll. Don’t pick one silently: show both, then ask or decide with what you know about the customer.
5. A discontinued code. The customer orders from last year’s list. The replacement is proposed, but if the pack changes (a 15 m coil that is now 25 m) the quantity changes too, and a person confirms that.

Why the AI proposes and a person confirms

A wrongly matched line doesn’t stay on the screen: it becomes a pick, a shipment and an invoice that later has to be credited. So the draft has to make checking easy, not hide it:

• every line says why it matched (code, words, size) and with what confidence;
• doubtful lines show both options instead of choosing one;
• unit conversions are shown with their arithmetic;
• the order cannot be created while the customer, a product, a quantity or a price is missing;
• nothing is sent back to the customer automatically.

The goal is not to remove the person, but to leave them only the lines that really need a look.

Checklist before confirming a draft

1. Is it the right customer, and is the delivery address theirs or a job site?
2. Is their order or job reference saved?
3. Is every quantity in your selling unit, with the conversion visible?
4. Are the prices from their price list, with any difference from the email flagged?
5. Are the “Check” and “No match” lines resolved, not just accepted?
6. Is there a discontinued code, or an alternative the customer suggested?

More guides on orders, pricing and importing in the guides index.

How HeavyDeals does it

In HeavyDeals, an administrator pastes the customer’s email and attaches their order as a PDF, photo, screenshot, Excel or CSV file. A language model reads it into fields; rules, not the model, match the customer and each line to your catalogue, convert metres into the product’s unit with the arithmetic shown, and mark every line “Match”, “Check” or “No match” with the best candidates. The draft shows that customer’s net price and will not create the order while anything is missing; once confirmed, the order is created in the customer’s name, pending validation. Nothing is sent to the customer automatically. Today the email is pasted in; reading the mailbox directly is not built yet. See how it works.

Every figure and rule was checked against the sources above, on the date shown next to each; last review of this guide: 11 October 2026. The examples use illustrative figures, not today’s quotes. This is not legal or tax advice. Written with the help of AI and reviewed by the HeavyDeals team.