AI Sales Order Automation for Australian Trade Suppliers: Emailed POs Into Draft Orders
Your trade customers email purchase orders as PDFs, spreadsheets and two-line emails, and someone on your order desk keys each one into Xero, MYOB, Cin7 Core, Unleashed or your ERP. We build an AI agent that reads those orders, matches their part numbers to yours, checks price and stock, and leaves a draft sales order for your team to approve. We build and support it, and you own the code.
Working software on your own data before you sign.
What does sales order automation look like for an Australian trade supplier?
Sales order automation reads the purchase orders your customers email, checks them against your price list, stock and credit terms, and creates the sales order in your system as a draft, so nobody retypes it. For an Australian supplier that also means comparing prices on the right GST basis, carrying the customer’s ABN and PO number through to the tax invoice, and working with the order record your software has. Xero’s published API has no sales order record, so in Xero the agent leaves an accepted quote or a draft invoice instead. The same job is also called automated order processing, or purchase order automation when seen from the customer’s side.
A purchase order (PO) is the customer’s document saying what they want and at what price. A sales order is your record that you have agreed to supply it. A draft is an order saved in your system that nobody has approved yet. An AI agent, on this page, is a program that opens each emailed PO, works out what the customer wants and keys a draft into your system, stopping at any step your rules say a person must check.
Who this suits: established wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers whose trade customers order by email in volumes that keep one or more people keying all day. Electrical, plumbing and building supplies, food service, industrial parts, packaging and promotional products fit the pattern. If most of your orders already arrive through a portal or EDI, the reading step is done and the gain is smaller.
Six jobs between the orders inbox and an approved sales order
You decide which jobs the agent does for each customer. We suggest starting with collecting, reading and matching for your twenty busiest accounts, then adding checks and draft confirmations once the results on those accounts hold up. The collecting and reading steps use the same methods as our document intake agents.
Collects
Watches the orders inbox and pulls out each PDF, spreadsheet or order typed into an email. Statements, quote requests and newsletters are set aside so they never become orders.
Reads
Pulls the customer, their PO number, ship-to address, delivery date and every line. It checks the lines add up to the PO total and marks any field it is unsure of.
Matches
Translates each customer’s own codes and descriptions into your item codes from a lookup table seeded with orders you have already keyed. When your team fixes a line, the fix goes into the table.
Checks
Compares price with that customer’s price on the same GST basis, then looks at stock on hand, credit limit, minimum order and pack size. Every mismatch is listed on the draft.
Drafts
Creates the sales order as a draft in Xero, MYOB, Cin7 Core, Unleashed or your ERP, with the original PO attached and the PO number in the reference field.
Replies
Prepares the order confirmation with lines you can supply, back orders and a dispatch date, and holds it until a person releases it.
What stays with your order desk
- Approving each order. The agent drafts; a person approves.
- Price exceptions. Anything outside the tolerance your sales lead set.
- Credit holds. Your accounts team decides whether an order on hold ships.
- Changes after approval. Shown beside the order, decided by a person.
- The customer relationship. Calls, disputes and favours stay with your team.
Where the draft sales order lands in Xero, MYOB, Cin7 Core, Unleashed and ERPs
Each system gives a waiting order a different home. Before we build, we pick the one that fits how your team dispatches and invoices today, so nothing about their day changes except the typing.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| System | Where the agent leaves the order | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Xero | An accepted quote, or a sales invoice saved as DRAFT | Xero’s API lists quotes and invoices but no sales order record, so the design decides where an order waits before dispatch. |
| MYOB (AccountRight, new Essentials) | A sale order with status Open, where your edition offers sale orders | Which layouts and inventory features your file has depends on the edition, checked on the scoping call. Your team converts the order to an invoice when goods ship. |
| Cin7 Core | A sale order saved as DRAFT | Cin7 Core accepts only DRAFT or AUTHORISED on create, so a person authorises each order. |
| Unleashed | A sales order in the status your team uses for orders on hold | Unleashed requires a status on every order it creates or updates through the API. |
| NetSuite, Odoo, SAP Business One, ERPNext, custom ERPs | A draft, pending approval order or review list, whichever the system offers | We have built order flows on each of these. |
Based on the published documentation read on 29 October 2026: Xero Accounting API specification, MYOB Business API overview, MYOB Sale Order endpoint, Cin7 Core API and Unleashed Sales Orders API. QuickBooks and Acumatica files are scoped on the first call, once we have seen which order records your edition offers. So are Pronto Xi, MYOB Advanced and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Emailed POs, OCR software, EDI or a portal: which order intake fits which customer?
Most suppliers end up running two or three of these side by side. The question is which customers go where, and who does the work to set each one up.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Method | Who sets the format | Setup effort | What it handles badly | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emailed PO read by an AI agent | The customer, any layout | A part number table and written rules per customer | Orders with no PO number or no clear customer | Many trade accounts that each email their own PDF or spreadsheet |
| OCR or document capture software | The customer, read through templates or a trained model | Templates or training per layout, then a connector to your system | New layouts and rules the product does not offer | High volume from layouts that rarely change |
| EDI | The buyer, in a fixed electronic format | An EDI provider and mapping per trading partner | Small accounts that will never set it up | A few large retail accounts that require it |
| Customer portal or B2B store | You, through your own order screens | A trade store with customer pricing and logins | Customers who keep emailing out of habit | Repeat orders from customers willing to log in |
Buy order automation software, or build an agent?
Ready-made products exist, and for some suppliers they are the right answer. Conexiom says it automates orders and invoices with AI. Esker says its order management product takes orders from email, EDI, portals and other channels, checks them against ERP data, and offers a certified SAP connector. Rossum sells AI agents for document processing and lists sales orders as a document type. Parseur turns PDFs, scans and emails into structured data for the apps you already use.
A product fits when your system has a ready connector and your rules are close to its defaults. A custom agent fits when the work sits in your own rules: per-customer GST basis, inners against cartons, a part number table built from your past orders, or Xero with no sales order record. Ask any vendor, us included, to run a trial on your own past POs before you choose.
Five mistakes we design out before the agent sees a live order
Reading a PDF is the easy part. The errors that cost money come from how Australian trade customers write their orders. Each one needs a rule your team agrees in writing before launch.
- Ex GST against inc GSTA customer’s PO shows GST-inclusive prices and your price list is ex GST. Every line looks about 10% too high. The agent records each customer’s basis and compares like with like.
- Inners against cartonsAn electrical wholesaler sells cable glands in inners of 10 and cartons of 100. A contractor writes “5” and means five inners. The agent compares the quantity with that contractor’s usual order and the item’s pack sizes, and marks a line that looks ten times too big or too small.
- Their part number, not yoursA plumbing merchant orders by a code from its own system that appears nowhere in your item list. A lookup table from their codes to yours, filled from orders your team has already keyed, settles it. Until a code is in the table, that line goes to a person.
- The same order twiceA retailer’s head office sends an order through EDI, and the store manager emails the same PO as a PDF an hour later to be sure. Before drafting, the agent looks for that PO number among the customer’s open orders and holds any repeat.
- A change after approvalA builder emails two days later to raise a site PO from 24 to 40 and move the delivery window. It opens the existing order, puts the new quantity next to the old one and holds both until someone on the desk decides.
GST, tax invoices and Peppol: why the order has to carry the right details
The order feeds the tax invoice. The agent never issues invoices, but whatever it records on the sales order flows onto the invoice your team sends after dispatch. The ATO lists seven details a tax invoice must show for taxable sales under $1,000, and from $1,000 it must also show the buyer’s identity or ABN. Trade orders often pass $1,000, so the agent records the customer’s legal name and ABN on every order.
Customers can ask for one within 28 days. The ATO says that if a customer asks for a tax invoice you must provide one within 28 days, unless the sale is $82.50 including GST or less. Orders with the right customer details and PO number make that a quick reprint.
Peppol rewards a clean PO number. The ATO describes Peppol as Australia’s common standard and network for eInvoicing, with over 400,000 Australian businesses on it, and says buyers on it do not need to enter or scan invoices by hand. Their software matches your invoice to their purchase order, which only works if the PO number you captured is exact.
Sources: ATO, tax invoices (last updated 18 September 2026); ATO, about eInvoicing (last updated 7 July 2026). This is general information, not tax advice. Check how it applies to you with your registered tax or BAS agent.
- Customer’s legal name and ABN. Matched to the record on file.
- Their PO number, exactly. In the reference field your invoice prints.
- GST basis of the PO. Ex or inc, recorded per customer.
- Delivery address and date. As written, with any site notes.
- The original PO. Attached, so anyone can check the source.
- Every flag. What did not match and why, at the top of the draft.
Seven steps from a month of emailed orders to a live order agent
Each phase is scoped, priced and signed on its own, so you can stop after the demo if the numbers on your own orders do not convince you. Open a step for the detail.
01Collect a month of real orders
You share a sample of emailed POs and the sales orders your team keyed from them. That pair is the test set for everything after it.
02Map the order desk
We sit with whoever keys orders and trace each step: the inbox, the customer lookup, the price check, the stock check and who approves what.
03Write the rules down
With your sales lead we agree price tolerances, GST basis per customer, credit holds, minimums and what must always go to a person.
04Build the cross-reference
From past orders we build the list that turns each customer’s part numbers and units into yours. Corrections add to it after launch.
05Demo on your data
A first version reads your sample POs and we set its drafts beside your team’s orders. You see it working before you sign the build.
06Connect and test
We connect the inbox and Xero, MYOB, Cin7 Core, Unleashed or your ERP with the least access the job needs, then replay your past orders.
07Launch in draft mode, then support
Every order lands as a draft for approval. As accuracy holds for a customer, you choose what to relax. We stay on to fix and adjust.
Next step
Send us ten purchase orders your team keyed last week
Tell us which system you run (Xero, MYOB, Cin7 Core, Unleashed or an ERP) and roughly how many emailed orders arrive a day. We will read your sample with a first version and show you the drafts beside your team’s orders before you sign anything.
What terms apply to an order automation project?
Terms
- Demo before you signworking software on your own POsFirst
- Fixed price per phaseeach phase scoped and signed on its ownWritten
- You own the code and repositoryfrom day one, with the rules and test ordersYours
- AI and hosting in your accountsat cost, no markup from usOptional
- Defects fixed inside the build pricefor a cover period agreed before work startsIncluded
- Support after launcheach change quoted and approved, no monthly minimumOptional
Send it as it is. The most useful briefs name your accounting or inventory system, any ERP, how orders arrive (email, portal, EDI), a rough daily order count and the three customers whose orders cause the most rework. A PDF or Word document is fine. The founder reads it and replies within 24 hours with questions or a scoping call.
How much does sales order automation cost in Australia?
Flowtivity’s March 2026 Australian pricing guide puts document processing and data entry agents at A$12,000 to A$30,000, and multi-system workflow automation at A$20,000 to A$50,000 or more. The guide does not say whether those figures include GST. They are market ranges, not our prices: we quote the build, and any support you choose, as fixed prices in writing after a scoping call.
What moves the scope
- How many customers send their own layouts. Ten busy accounts is a different job from three hundred occasional ones.
- Part number cross-referencing. How many customers order by their own codes, and how clean your past orders are.
- Checks against your system. Price, GST basis, stock, credit and minimums each add rules and tests.
- Where the order lands. Xero needs more design than a system with a real sales order record.
- Confirmations and EDI. Draft replies to customers, and any EDI accounts beside the email ones.
Xero’s published Accounting API gives a quote six statuses: DRAFT, SENT, DECLINED, ACCEPTED, INVOICED and DELETED. It has no sales order record. So on plain Xero we agree with you which of these marks an order that is waiting for dispatch, usually an accepted quote or a draft invoice.
Source: Xero Accounting API specification, searched 29 October 2026.
Which ERPs and EDI setups has FactoryJet built order automation on?
Our ERP order work covers Odoo, NetSuite, SAP Business One, ERPNext and custom systems, on both the buying and the selling side, plus RFQ automation and day-to-day bookkeeping. EDI links and punchout catalogues sit in the same toolkit, which suits a supplier whose big accounts trade by EDI while the rest still email PDFs. Where the store and the ERP also need joining, see our ecommerce and ERP integration work.
One example: Sow Easy, a B2B distributor. We are building a WooCommerce trade store that reads stock, pricing and SKUs (product codes) from Odoo, so trade orders placed there will arrive as structured records. The store and the Odoo link are being tested on staging, and launch is still ahead. Read the case study.
FactoryJet has served more than 500 businesses since 2014. Australian order desk projects run on video workshops and shared order samples, with calls in Australian business hours for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and regional suppliers.
Put these to any order automation provider, us included. Will you score a trial per customer on our own past POs? How do you tell an ex GST PO from an inc GST one? What happens when a customer orders in inners and we sell in cartons? How do you catch a PO that arrives twice? Which AI providers see our orders, and in which country? Get the answers in writing.
Other back-office jobs we build agents for in Australia
Supplier invoices land on the same desk as customer orders. These pages cover that job and others.
- Accounts payable automationThe other side of the same paperwork: supplier invoices read, checked and drafted as bills in Xero or MYOB.
- Accounts receivable automationWhat happens after the order ships: invoices sent, payments matched and overdue accounts followed up.
- AI agents for Australian businessesAgents for other back-office jobs across Xero, MYOB, HubSpot and Microsoft 365.
- AI development and integrationLarger builds: ERP and inventory integrations with AI inside them.
- AI consultingNot sure order entry is the right first job? A short assessment ranks the options.
- Ecommerce developmentB2B and wholesale stores where trade customers order online and skip the PDF entirely.
- Sales order automation (US)Our US page, which also covers EDI document types and purchase orders out to suppliers.
Sales order automation questions Australian suppliers ask
Replies within 24 hours.
Q01What is sales order automation?
It means software does the keying when a customer orders. A purchase order arrives by email, the software reads the customer, the PO number, each line and the delivery date, checks them against your price list and stock, and creates the sales order in your system. Done well, it leaves the order as a draft so a person on your order desk approves it before anything is picked, invoiced or confirmed.
Q02What is the difference between a purchase order and a sales order?
They are two sides of one deal. Your customer raises a purchase order, or PO, to tell you what they want to buy and at what price. You raise a sales order in your own system to record that you have agreed to supply it. The PO number belongs to the customer, and a good sales order carries it, so their accounts team can match your invoice to their order later.
Q03Who prepares a sales order?
The seller does. At most trade suppliers, that means a customer service or order desk person who reads the emailed PO, finds the customer, picks the right items and keys the order into Xero, MYOB, Cin7 Core, Unleashed or an ERP. An AI agent takes over the reading and keying and leaves the finished draft with that same person, who still decides whether it is right.
Q04Is a sales order the same thing as an invoice?
No. A sales order records what you have agreed to supply, before anything ships. An invoice asks for payment once you have supplied it, and in Australia it usually has to be a valid tax invoice. In MYOB the link is visible: its API gives a sale order the status Open or ConvertedToInvoice. In Xero, which has no sales order record, the order often waits as a quote or a draft invoice.
Q05What comes first, the order or the invoice?
The order. The customer sends a purchase order, you create the sales order, you pick and dispatch the goods, and then you invoice. Some businesses invoice at the point of order for prepaid accounts, but trade customers on 30-day terms expect the invoice after delivery, quoting their PO number. Keeping that order of events is one reason the agent drafts orders and leaves invoicing to your normal process.
Q06Can AI do order entry from emailed purchase orders?
Yes, for the reading and the keying. A modern AI model can read a PDF from a customer’s ERP, a spreadsheet with their own part numbers, or an email that says “same as last week plus two cartons”. What it cannot know on its own is your price for that customer, your stock or your credit terms. That is why the agent checks your system before it drafts, and why a person approves the result. AI order processing done this way is order entry automation with a person still signing off.
Q07What are the steps in sales order processing?
Receive the purchase order. Identify the customer and their PO number. Match each line to your items and units. Check price, stock and credit. Create the sales order. Confirm it to the customer with a date. Pick, pack and dispatch with Australia Post, StarTrack or your carrier. Invoice, quoting the PO number. Our agent covers the first six steps and hands dispatch and invoicing to your existing process.
Q08Does Xero have sales orders, and how does a Xero sales order work?
Not as a separate record. We searched Xero’s published Accounting API specification on 29 October 2026 and found no sales order object. It does have quotes, with statuses including DRAFT, ACCEPTED and INVOICED, and sales invoices that can be saved as DRAFT. So on plain Xero the agent writes an accepted quote or a draft invoice. Wholesalers who need real sales orders usually run an inventory app such as Cin7 Core or Unleashed beside Xero.
Q09Can I make a purchase order in Xero?
Yes. Xero’s API specification lists endpoints that retrieve, create and update purchase orders. That matters for order automation when a customer order needs stock you do not hold: the agent can draft the purchase order to your supplier in Xero at the same time as the customer’s order, and your buyer approves both. Nothing is sent to a supplier without a person signing off.
Q10Does it work with MYOB sales orders?
Yes, subject to your MYOB edition. MYOB’s Sale Order documentation says API access is available to AccountRight and new Essentials files, and lists reading, creating, updating and deleting orders in Item, Service, Professional, TimeBilling and Miscellaneous layouts. Whether your file has sale orders in the Item layout, with inventory, depends on the edition you run, so we check it on the scoping call. Where it does, the agent creates the order as Open and your team converts it to an invoice when the goods go out.
Q11Does it work with Cin7 Core or Unleashed?
Yes, and both suit this job. Cin7 Core’s developer documentation says a sale order created through its API can only be saved as DRAFT or AUTHORISED, so the agent saves DRAFT and your team authorises. Unleashed’s API lets sales orders be listed, viewed, created and updated, and requires an order status on each one. We set the status your team already uses for orders waiting on a check.
Q12What about NetSuite, Odoo or a custom ERP?
Yes, we have built order flows on each of them. The first job on any ERP is finding where an order can wait for a person: a draft, a pending approval status or a review list we build. If a custom ERP has no API, we look at its import files or a read-only database view before anything else.
ERP AI agents in Australia ↗ NetSuite AI agents in Australia ↗
Q13What about orders from our Shopify store or marketplaces?
Those usually need no reading at all. Orders from a Shopify store or from marketplaces such as Amazon.com.au, Bunnings Marketplace or Kogan reach your inventory system as structured records through the connector you already run. This page is about the orders that arrive as documents: trade customers, builders, retailers and resellers who email a PO. If your web store needs work, see our ecommerce development page.
Ecommerce development in Australia ↗ Shopify and Xero integration ↗ B2B ecommerce in Australia ↗
Q14How does the agent handle GST on purchase order prices?
It checks which basis each customer uses. Many trade POs show unit prices ex GST with GST added at the bottom, while others show GST-inclusive totals. If the agent compares an inc-GST line with your ex-GST price list, every line looks about 10% too high. So each customer gets a recorded basis, the agent compares like with like, and any line it cannot reconcile goes to your order desk.
Q15Will the invoice that follows be a valid tax invoice?
The agent does not issue invoices, but it makes the invoice easier to get right. The ATO lists seven details for taxable sales under $1,000, including your ABN, the date, a description with quantity and price, and the GST amount. From $1,000 the invoice must also show the buyer’s identity or ABN. The agent records the customer’s legal name, ABN and PO number on the order, so they flow onto the invoice.
Q16Does Peppol eInvoicing replace emailed purchase orders?
Not yet for most suppliers. The ATO describes Peppol as Australia’s standard network for eInvoicing, with over 400,000 Australian businesses on it, and its pages are about invoices passing between suppliers’ and buyers’ software. Purchase orders from trade customers still mostly arrive as PDFs and emails. If you send invoices by Peppol, the PO number the agent captured is what lets your customer’s software match them.
Q17Our largest retail customers want EDI. Do we still need an agent?
Often yes, for everyone else. EDI is a fixed electronic format for orders and replies, set by the buyer, and it needs an EDI provider or an integration into your system. We build EDI integrations and punchout catalogues as well as agents. The usual picture is a few large accounts on EDI and dozens of smaller ones emailing PDFs. The agent handles the emails and checks for an order that arrives both ways.
Q18How accurate is AI at reading purchase orders?
We hand you a scoring sheet instead of a headline percentage. Before launch the agent works through a set of your past POs, and every customer gets a row: PO number, lines, quantities, prices and delivery dates, each marked right, wrong or flagged. GST basis and unit of measure are scored as fields of their own, because a missed ex or inc switch or a carton read as an inner costs more than a typo. Anything the agent is unsure of is flagged on the draft.
Q19What happens when the price on the PO does not match our price list?
The agent shows the difference and stops. Your sales lead decides the rule before the build: for example, accept differences under a set amount and query anything larger. The agent applies that written rule and nothing else. It never lowers your price to match an old PO, and it never raises the customer’s price without a person approving the change.
Q20Can the agent send order confirmations to customers?
It can draft them, and you decide when it sends. The draft confirmation quotes the customer’s PO number, the lines you can supply, any short or back-ordered items and the dispatch date worked out from stock. At first a person releases every confirmation. Once the logs show the drafts are right for a customer, you can let routine confirmations go out on approval of the order.
Q21Where does our order data go?
Purchase orders carry names, phone numbers and delivery addresses, which can be personal information, and many AI models run on servers overseas. Under APP 8, a business covered by the Privacy Act must take reasonable steps before disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient, and stays accountable for it. We name every provider, use business terms that stop your data being used for training, and document the data flow.
Q22How much does sales order automation cost in Australia?
Flowtivity’s March 2026 Australian pricing guide puts document processing and data entry agents at A$12,000 to A$30,000, and multi-system workflow automation at A$20,000 to A$50,000 or more. The guide does not say whether those include GST, so ask any provider which basis a quote uses. These are market ranges, not our prices. We quote the build, and any support you choose, as fixed prices in writing after a scoping call.
Flowtivity, Australian AI agent pricing guide (March 2026) ↗ AI cost guide for Australia ↗
Q23How long does it take to build an order entry agent?
Flowtivity’s guide lists four to eight weeks for document processing agents and six to twelve weeks for multi-system workflows, and that matches the shape of this work. The time goes on three things: building the part number cross-reference from past orders, agreeing the price and credit rules, and testing on your real POs. We give you a timeline after the first mapping session, once we have seen your orders.
Q24Can we see it working on our own orders before we sign?
Yes. We show you working software on your own data before you sign. Send us a sample of purchase orders your customers have already emailed, with the sales orders your team keyed from them. A first version reads them, and we put its drafts beside your team’s orders so you can judge the gap yourself. The founder replies within 24 hours to set it up.
Q25Who owns the agent and the code?
You do, from day one: the code, the repository, the written rules and the test orders. The AI and hosting can run in your own accounts at cost, with no markup from us. Defects are fixed inside the build price for a cover period agreed before work starts. Support after that is optional, each change is quoted and approved first, and there is no monthly minimum.
See your own purchase orders turned into draft sales orders
Send your name and work email. The founder replies within 24 hours to arrange a demo on a sample of your emailed orders, in the system you already run. No spam, no obligation.