Does your team still process orders through email? Looking for input on a potential tool
-
Hey all,
Iām working on a tool (B2 Portal) aimed at manufacturers who still receive most of their customer orders via email. The idea is to auto-detect order intent in emails, extract the PO or order details, generate an invoice, and track the job status from one place (without having to dig through email threads or manually create invoices).
I know a lot of you already use ERP systems or have custom workflows, but Iām curious:
-
Do you still get orders via email?
-
Is organizing, invoicing, or tracking those orders a time suck?
-
Would something like this actually help, or is it a non-issue?
Just looking for honest feedback from folks who live this every day ā would appreciate your thoughts.
-
-
Hi Jackson, this sounds like a really interesting tool. I have heard that dealing with a glut of RFQs can be annoying because it takes a lot of time to respond and sometimes it's just fishing. Although it sounds like your tool is more oriented toward detecting orders (perhaps repeat orders?) in an email inbox so that they don't get lost. Is that a fair characterization?
-
Yes, that's mostly fair. It's primary use is to detect orders and streamline the manual RFQ/invoicing process. But, it's also to just stay more organized. I'm not trying to replace gmail/outlook, but I'm more so looking to create an extension off of it.
-
Yes, that's mostly fair. It's primary use is to detect orders and streamline the manual RFQ/invoicing process. But, it's also to just stay more organized. I'm not trying to replace gmail/outlook, but I'm more so looking to create an extension off of it.
@JacksonLefebvre how hard would it be to start using a tool like this? I suspect that there are many different combinations of ERP and email servers that might make it challenging to set up. It would be interesting to learn more. I actually had the very common problem of half of my orders coming from phone calls and text messages in my old shops.
-
When I had taken over in late 2023, we had looked and looked for a good ERP system that fit our needs. We currently have ProShop and it has its ups and downs and we are still learning as we go as well. But before ProShop we have a computer that was not even online to process purchase orders and the accounting. I believe it was from the 80's if not older.
-
When I had taken over in late 2023, we had looked and looked for a good ERP system that fit our needs. We currently have ProShop and it has its ups and downs and we are still learning as we go as well. But before ProShop we have a computer that was not even online to process purchase orders and the accounting. I believe it was from the 80's if not older.
-
When I had taken over in late 2023, we had looked and looked for a good ERP system that fit our needs. We currently have ProShop and it has its ups and downs and we are still learning as we go as well. But before ProShop we have a computer that was not even online to process purchase orders and the accounting. I believe it was from the 80's if not older.
@Jerika Do you get most of your customer orders/RFQs via email? And then you manually put the information into ProShop and create an invoice? Is that an accurate depiction of your order flow?
-
@JacksonLefebvre how hard would it be to start using a tool like this? I suspect that there are many different combinations of ERP and email servers that might make it challenging to set up. It would be interesting to learn more. I actually had the very common problem of half of my orders coming from phone calls and text messages in my old shops.
@michael-kornuta The goal would be super simple to start using since it will just be actively scrapping in the background.
-
@Jerika Do you get most of your customer orders/RFQs via email? And then you manually put the information into ProShop and create an invoice? Is that an accurate depiction of your order flow?
@JacksonLefebvre Yes it is!
