AI for ERP

AI for the work around your ERP, not a new ERP.

AI for ERP is the reading, checking and entering of the documents that arrive around an ERP, so that orders, confirmations and invoices become ERP transactions without a person re-keying them. Elentaria reads the emails, PDFs, portal exports and Excel files that arrive around SAP, Dynamics 365, Business Central, NetSuite or the ERP you run, checks each one against the records it refers to and your pricing, terms and thresholds, and writes the prepared transaction to the ERP in the way you have agreed. Anything outside the rules goes to the responsible person.

A person at a dark desk working on a laptop, seen from above, a plant beside them

Reads

Elentaria reads the documents and messages that arrive around the ERP, sales orders, RFQs, order confirmations, supplier invoices, portal exports and Excel files, and the customer, item, price and open-order records inside it.

Checks

Each document is checked against the ERP records it refers to, the customer or supplier account, the item master, the open sales order or purchase order, and against your price lists, payment terms, thresholds and approval rules.

Writes

Prepared or completed ERP transactions, sales orders, purchase order updates, goods receipts and invoices, are written to the ERP with the source document attached, through the method agreed with you: API, database, import file or a person's confirmation.

To a person

Anything above a threshold, outside standard terms or not covered by the rules is held and handed to the responsible person with the ERP record and the document side by side.

The ERP workflow

From document received to ERP updated.

Elentaria connects the inbox, the shared drive and the spreadsheet next to the ERP with the records inside it, so a document is read once, checked against your rules, written as a transaction and reflected in every system that depends on it.

01 — Around the ERP

Start with the work that happens outside the ERP.

Most re-keying happens in the inbox, on the shared drive and in the spreadsheet beside the ERP. Elentaria watches those places and opens a case for each document that has to end up in the ERP.

Where documents arrive

Customer orders and RFQs by email and PDF, supplier order confirmations and invoices, exports from customer and supplier portals, EDI messages and the Excel files that sales, purchasing and finance keep beside the ERP.

What the ERP already holds

Customer and supplier accounts, item master and customer part numbers, price lists and payment terms, open sales orders and purchase orders, stock and delivery dates, read from SAP, Dynamics 365, Business Central, NetSuite, Epicor, Infor, Acumatica, Sage or the ERP you run.

The connection

Agreed per company with your ERP team and IT policy: API, direct database access, scheduled exports or an approved import file. Elentaria works with the method you choose and does not replace the ERP.

  1. Document arrives
  2. Source identified
  3. Case opened
  4. ERP record looked up
  5. Ready for reading
02 — Reading and matching

Read the document and match it to the ERP record it refers to.

Elentaria extracts the header and line data from the document, then matches each field to the account, item and open transaction in the ERP, so the document is understood in the ERP's own terms before any rule is applied.

Read

Document type, sender, references, line items, quantities, units, prices, dates, addresses and terms, taken from email bodies, PDF and scanned attachments, spreadsheets, portal exports and EDI messages.

Match to master data

Sender matched to the customer or supplier account, ship-to and bill-to addresses to the account's addresses, customer or supplier part numbers to your item master, units and pack sizes converted to the ERP's units.

Match to the open transaction

A confirmation matched to its purchase order, an invoice to its purchase order and goods receipt, a customer amendment to its sales order, line by line, with duplicates and already-processed documents detected.

  1. Fields extracted
  2. Account matched
  3. Items matched
  4. Open transaction found
  5. Unmatched items flagged
03 — Rules and thresholds

Apply your pricing, terms, thresholds and approval rules.

Before anything is written, Elentaria checks the matched document against the commercial rules your company already applies by hand, and decides with those rules whether it can proceed or needs a person.

Commercial rules

Customer and supplier price lists, contract prices, quantity breaks, discounts, minimum order quantities, payment and delivery terms, credit limits and the tolerances you allow between a document and the ERP record.

Thresholds

Order value, price deviation, quantity deviation, date deviation and credit exposure limits, each with the person who decides when the limit is passed.

Approval routing

Documents above a threshold, outside standard terms or with an unmatched line are held and sent to the named approver with the ERP record, the document and the difference shown together.

  1. Rules applied
  2. Thresholds checked
  3. Differences listed
  4. Approver asked if needed
  5. Cleared for writing
04 — Writing to the ERP

Write the transaction to the ERP, in the way you have agreed.

Elentaria creates or updates the ERP transaction from the checked data, using the connection method you approved, and attaches the source document so every transaction can be traced back to what arrived.

What is written

Sales orders created from customer orders, purchase orders updated from supplier confirmations, goods receipts recorded from delivery documents, supplier invoices registered against their purchase orders, and customer invoices prepared from delivered orders.

How it is written

Through the ERP's API, a database write, a prepared import file in the ERP's format, or a completed transaction that waits for a person's confirmation before it is posted, as agreed for each document type.

Evidence attached

The original email or PDF, the extracted data, the checks that were run and the approver's decision, stored against the ERP transaction and the case.

  1. Transaction prepared
  2. Written or queued for confirmation
  3. Source document attached
  4. ERP reference recorded
  5. Case updated
05 — Keeping systems aligned

Keep the CRM, finance and the inbox in step with the ERP.

Once the ERP holds the transaction, Elentaria updates the systems that depend on it and sends the confirmations that people used to write by hand, so the ERP, the CRM, the finance records and the customer all say the same thing.

Downstream records

CRM opportunity and account activity, finance and credit records, the spreadsheet a team still keeps, and links between the ERP transaction, the case and the original document.

Confirmations out

Order acknowledgements to customers, confirmation replies to suppliers and invoice notices, sent in the format each party expects, with the ERP reference included.

The record of what happened

For every document: where it came from, what was read, what it was matched to, which rules ran, who approved what and which ERP transaction resulted.

  1. CRM updated
  2. Finance records aligned
  3. Confirmation sent
  4. History recorded
  5. Next document
Your team stays in control

Automate the entry. Keep the commercial decisions.

Elentaria does the reading, matching and entering; rules, approvals and exceptions decide how work moves, so a discount, a price change or an unknown item waits for the person you have named instead of being written to the ERP.

Approvals

Orders above a value limit, price and quantity deviations beyond tolerance, non-standard terms and credit holds wait for the named approver before anything is written.

Exceptions

Unknown accounts, unmatched items, unreadable documents and duplicates are held and routed with the document and the ERP record, never written on a guess.

Visibility

Every document shows where it came from, what it was matched to, which rules ran, what was written to the ERP and what is waiting on whom.

Common questions

What does AI for ERP mean in practice?

In practice it means the documents and messages that arrive around an ERP, orders, RFQs, confirmations, invoices, portal exports and Excel files, are read, checked against the ERP records and the company's rules, and written to the ERP as transactions without a person re-keying them. The ERP itself does not change. Elentaria does this around the ERP a company already runs, with its own pricing, terms, thresholds and approval rules applied.

Which ERPs and connection methods does Elentaria work with?

Elentaria reads from and writes to the ERP the company already runs, for example SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Business Central, NetSuite, Epicor, Infor, Acumatica or Sage. The connection method is agreed per company with the ERP team and IT policy: the ERP's API, direct database access, scheduled exports or an approved import file. For some document types the transaction is prepared and waits for a person's confirmation before it is posted.

Does Elentaria replace our ERP?

No. The ERP stays the system of record. Elentaria reads its records, checks documents against them, writes transactions to it in the way you have agreed and attaches the source document, so nothing about your ERP or the way your team uses it changes.

Which tools do teams compare for this work?

Teams looking at order entry and document capture around an ERP most often compare Conexiom, Esker and Workist. See https://elentaria.ai/compare/conexiom-vs-esker, https://elentaria.ai/compare/workist-vs-conexiom and https://elentaria.ai/compare/best-esker-alternatives for where each is the better choice.

How do we get started?

Bring one document type that someone re-keys into your ERP today, and the ERP you run, to the demo. Elentaria is set up on your records, rules and approval thresholds for that document type, scoped on the demo, and extended to the next document type from there.

See how Elentaria would run the work around your ERP.

Bring one document type that someone re-keys into your ERP today, and the ERP you run, to the demo. You will see the document read, checked against your records and prepared as an ERP transaction, with the exceptions routed to your team.