Manual sales order processing is slow, error-prone, and inefficient. Businesses dealing with high order volumes often struggle with data entry mistakes, processing delays, and mismatched information. That’s where sales order OCR (Optical Character Recognition) comes in—helping companies automate order capture, improve accuracy, and streamline workflows.
If your business still relies on manual order entry, here’s how sales order OCR can make a difference.
What Is Sales Order OCR?
Sales order OCR is a technology that extracts and digitises data from paper-based or scanned sales orders, automatically converting it into a structured format. Instead of employees manually entering order details from PDFs, emails, or faxes, OCR software reads the document, identifies key fields, and inputs the information directly into the ERP or order management system.
This eliminates the need for manual keying, reducing errors and processing time.
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How Sales Order OCR Works
1. Capturing Sales Orders
The process starts by capturing incoming sales orders, which may arrive via email attachments, scanned documents, or faxed forms. Sales order OCR software ingests these files and prepares them for processing.
2. Extracting Key Data Fields
Using advanced character recognition and machine learning, OCR technology identifies and extracts crucial order details such as:
- Customer name and contact information
- Order number and date
- Product codes and descriptions
- Quantities and pricing
- Shipping and billing details
Unlike simple text recognition, modern sales order OCR can interpret unstructured data and adapt to different order formats, ensuring accurate extraction.
3. Validating and Matching Data
Once extracted, the system cross-checks order details against existing customer records, pricing agreements, and stock availability. It can flag discrepancies such as incorrect pricing, duplicate orders, or missing fields, reducing the risk of processing errors.
4. Automating Order Entry
Validated sales order data is then automatically uploaded into the ERP or order management system, triggering the next steps in the order-to-cash process—such as invoicing, fulfilment, and shipping.
Why Businesses Are Adopting Sales Order OCR
1. Faster Order Processing
With sales order OCR, businesses can reduce order processing time from hours to minutes, enabling quicker fulfilment and improved customer satisfaction.
2. Fewer Errors, Less Rework
Manual order entry often leads to wrongly keyed in numbers, incorrect product details, or mismatched data. OCR automation ensures higher accuracy, reducing costly mistakes and rework.
3. Cost Savings
By eliminating manual processing, businesses reduce labour costs and improve overall efficiency, allowing staff to focus on higher-value tasks.
4. Seamless ERP Integration
Sales order OCR integrates with ERP, CRM, and inventory systems, ensuring real-time order visibility and better decision-making.
5. Improved Customer Experience
Faster and more accurate order processing means fewer delays, fewer disputes, and a smoother buying experience for customers.
Is Sales Order OCR Right for Your Business?
If your business handles high sales order volumes, struggles with manual entry errors, or wants to improve order-to-cash efficiency, sales order OCR can be a game-changer.
By automating order capture and validation, businesses can process orders faster, reduce costs, and enhance accuracy, all while ensuring seamless integration with existing systems.
Looking to implement sales order OCR for your business? Get in touch to explore how automation can transform your order processing workflow.
Learn more about B2BE’s Sales Order Automation solution.
About B2BE
B2BE delivers electronic supply chain solutions globally, helping organisations to better manage their supply chain processes, providing greater levels of visibility, auditability and control. We’re driven by a passion for what we do, inspired by innovation, and underpinned by a wealth of knowledge. With over 20+ years of experience, the B2BE teams operate worldwide.
For more information, visit www.b2be.com.