Overview
A mid-sized industrial parts distributor was processing 300+ purchase orders per week — all initiated via email. Staff manually extracted line items from PDF attachments, checked inventory in their ERP, created POs, routed them for approval, and coordinated with shipping carriers. The process took 45 minutes per order on average, and errors in transcription caused frequent shipment delays and returns.
We built an AI-powered automation pipeline that handles the full purchase order lifecycle: parsing inbound order emails with AI document understanding, validating line items against real-time inventory, generating purchase orders in their NetSuite ERP, routing approvals based on dollar thresholds, and booking shipments with integrated carrier APIs — all without human intervention for standard orders.
How It Works
1. Email Parsing & Document Understanding
- AI monitors a dedicated orders inbox and classifies incoming emails (new order, revision, cancellation, inquiry)
- Extracts structured data from PDF/Excel attachments: SKUs, quantities, unit prices, ship-to addresses, requested delivery dates
- Handles variations in format across 200+ customer templates using few-shot learning
- Flags ambiguous or incomplete orders for human review with pre-filled suggestions
2. Inventory Validation & Sourcing
- Real-time inventory check against NetSuite ERP via REST API
- Automatic split-order logic when partial stock is available: ships what’s in stock, backorders the rest
- Triggers reorder alerts when stock drops below safety thresholds
- Cross-references pricing against customer-specific contract rates and flags discrepancies
3. PO Generation & Approval Routing
- Generates compliant purchase orders in NetSuite with all extracted line items, pricing, and terms
- Smart approval routing: orders under $5K auto-approved, $5K-$25K routed to purchasing manager, $25K+ requires VP sign-off
- Approval notifications via email and Slack with one-click approve/reject
- Automatic escalation if approvals are not completed within SLA windows
4. Shipment Coordination & Tracking
- Integrates with ShipStation and direct carrier APIs (UPS, FedEx, freight brokers) for rate shopping
- Automatically selects optimal carrier based on delivery date, package dimensions, and cost
- Generates shipping labels, BOLs, and packing slips
- Sends proactive tracking updates to customers with estimated delivery windows
Architecture & Infrastructure
Email & AI
Microsoft 365 Graph API, Amazon Textract + Claude for document understanding, classification pipeline
ERP Integration
NetSuite REST API, real-time inventory sync, contract pricing engine
Orchestration
AWS Step Functions, Lambda compute, SQS queues, dead-letter handling for failed orders
Shipping
ShipStation API, UPS/FedEx direct connect, automated label generation, tracking webhooks
Performance
Email-to-PO (Standard Orders)
6 minutes
Email-to-PO (Complex/Multi-line)
15 minutes
Orders Requiring Human Review
13%
Customer Order Confirmation
<10 minutes
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