Stop retyping emailed orders: AI staff for wholesalers and distributors
A wholesaler's day runs to the cut-off. Purchase orders arrive as PDFs to be typed in before the vans load, customers ask what is in stock, and supplier invoices wait to be matched against what was delivered. AI staff can key the orders, match the invoices and answer the routine questions. Your people release the orders and approve the money.
What fills a wholesaler's office before the cut-off
Orders by email and PDF
Customers email purchase orders as PDFs and spreadsheets, quoting their own product codes. A sales office administrator types each into Sage 200, Business Central or OrderWise and checks that customer's price list and credit limit. Key a case as a single and the wrong goods go out, then return with a credit note to raise.
Stock, price and delivery queries
Is it in stock, what is my price, where is my delivery, can I have a copy invoice? The answers are in the system, but the questions land on the people keying orders. Every answer is an order not yet entered, and a back order brings the same question daily until the goods arrive.
Supplier invoices and statements
A purchase ledger clerk matches each supplier invoice to the purchase order for price and the goods received note for quantity, and queries shortages and price rises before approval. HMRC treats the VAT invoice as the evidence for reclaiming input tax, and records are kept six years. Fall behind and a supplier stops the account.
Credit accounts and collections
New customers apply for credit accounts and existing ones drift past their terms. A credit controller sets limits, sends statements and chases what is overdue. With no agreed date, the law treats a business invoice as late after 30 days. The sales office learns an account is on stop when its order will not release.
Roles for Wholesale and distribution
Order processing
Reads each emailed order, matches the customer's codes to yours and keys it as a held order, with price and stock differences shown. Your sales office releases it and decides substitutes, shortages and stopped accounts.
Purchase invoice processing
Reads each supplier invoice, matches it to the purchase order and the goods received note, codes it and queues it with any difference marked. A person approves every invoice and makes every payment.
Invoice and payment chasing
Sends statements and overdue reminders to credit accounts at the intervals you set, and logs each reply. Disputes, credit notes, payment plans and the decision to stop an account go to your credit controller.
First-line client support
Answers written stock, price, delivery and copy-invoice questions from what your system shows. Complaints, damaged goods, returns and anything the record cannot answer go to your sales office with the history attached.
It drafts.
You approve.
We manage.
You don’t need a complex new platform. Your AI worker operates inside your existing tools under human supervision.
Human-in-the-loop
High-impact actions (sending emails, updating compliance records) wait for explicit human approval before execution.
A full audit trail
Every action is logged with who approved it, and we go through it with you each month.
Nothing to maintain
If a workflow breaks or a system changes, we fix it. Keeping it running is our job.
UK-hosted and kept separate
Your data is stored in the UK, and is never used to train AI models.
Questions owners ask
Can AI staff read the purchase orders our customers email?
Yes, whether they arrive as PDFs, as spreadsheets or typed into the body of an email. The agent reads each order and matches each line to your product codes and that customer's prices. Where a code, a pack size or a price does not match, it does not guess. Your sales office sees the line and the question.
Does it release orders or allocate stock on its own?
Not to begin with. Every order is keyed as held and one of your people releases it. Once you have seen it work, you can set a standing rule, such as repeat orders under a value you choose from accounts in good standing. Anything outside the rule still waits for a person.
Will it pay our suppliers for us?
No. It never makes a payment and never changes a supplier's bank details. It matches the invoice to the order and the goods received note, codes it and queues it. Approval, the payment run and any change of bank details, confirmed with the supplier by phone, stay with your finance team.
Will it work with Sage 200, Business Central or OrderWise?
Sage 200, Business Central, Unleashed and Xero each publish a way in for other software. OrderWise publishes integrations rather than an API, so for it and anything else the way in is checked with you and the maker against your version. If yours has no way in, you hear that before you commit.