01
Receive
A repeat customer sends a purchase order by email, PDF, or spreadsheet.
FrontBeacon Order Desk
Turn emailed purchase orders into review-ready ERP drafts.
FrontBeacon helps industrial distributors extract order data, resolve customer part numbers and units, and route uncertain lines for human approval.
Your ERP remains the source of truth. FrontBeacon does not autonomously approve pricing, credit, inventory, or order release.
Start with a free accuracy snapshot on purchase orders you have already processed.
Illustrative workflow
Synthetic example — not a customer result
Incoming PO
PO 10482
Customer part
ABC-7782
Ordered
4 BX
Catalog match
HB-025-SS
Suggested internal SKU
Unit rule
4 BX → 400 EA
Approved pack conversion
One line prepared
Mapping and unit rule found.
One line routed for review
Conflicting unit found in source.
The translation problem
The difficult part is not reading the PDF.
The difficult part is translating each customer’s ordering language into the distributor’s catalog and ERP language — safely, consistently, and with clear exceptions.
Translation problem
Controlled result
Customer part number
Internal SKU
Customer unit
Approved unit and pack rule
Duplicate or revision
Explicit warning
Ambiguous instruction
Human review
How it works
Receive. Match. Review. Prepare.
A bounded workflow turns source documents into controlled output while preserving employee approval.
02
Match
Match products, quantities, units, customer references, and approved catalog rules.
03
Review
Route missing fields, conflicting units, revisions, and uncertain matches to an employee.
04
Prepare
Produce an import-ready file or a staged sales-order draft for the existing ERP.
The customer keeps the existing inbox, catalog, ERP, and approval authority.
Controls
Human approval stays in the workflow.
FrontBeacon prepares the operational draft. Your team keeps authority over commercial decisions and release.
FrontBeacon prepares
Your team controls
Header and line-item extraction
Pricing and discount decisions
Customer-part-number and catalog matching
Credit, tax, freight, and inventory commitments
Unit and pack-size validation
Substitutions
Duplicate, revision, and missing-field checks
Final order release
Review-ready output and exception notes
Customer communication
Free accuracy snapshot
Check the accuracy on your own purchase orders first.
Send purchase orders you have already processed. Within three to five days you get every field we extracted, with a confidence score, sitting beside the original page — so you can check it yourself before anything is agreed.
01
15 to 25 purchase orders you have already processed
02
Redact anything you would rather not share
03
Purchase orders only — no live inbox connection
04
No ERP access and no workflow change
05
Every extracted field shown beside the original page
06
A confidence score on each field
07
Results back in three to five days
08
Defined data retention and deletion, agreed first
Go further, if you want to
Include an item-master export and the sales orders those purchase orders became, and the report also scores product, quantity, and unit against what your team actually keyed.
Qualification
A fit when manual order preparation is still meaningful.
Order Desk is intended for the meaningful non-EDI remainder. Clear disqualification protects both teams.
Likely fit
Probably not a fit
Meaningful emailed PO volume remains after EDI and ecommerce
Most orders are handled reliably through EDI or ecommerce
Repeat customers use their own part numbers or descriptions
Order volume is too low to support a business case
Units, pack sizes, aliases, or revisions create manual work
Work requires drawings, BOMs, engineering judgment, or bespoke costing
A structured catalog and controlled ERP output are available
The buyer expects autonomous commercial decisions
FAQ
Clear boundaries before we talk.
The first engagement is designed to be narrow, observable, and easy to stop or expand based on evidence.
01Does FrontBeacon replace our ERP?
No. The ERP remains authoritative. FrontBeacon prepares a controlled draft or import-ready output.
02Does it release orders automatically?
No. Every result is reviewed by your team, and FrontBeacon does not autonomously release orders.
03What documents are included?
The initial scope is emailed purchase orders in a bounded set of PDF, spreadsheet, and agreed customer formats.
04What happens when a product match or unit is uncertain?
The line is routed for explicit employee review with the source information and reason for uncertainty.
05What if EDI already handles most of our orders?
FrontBeacon is intended for the meaningful non-EDI remainder. If that remainder is small and clean, it may not be worth automating.
06What does the accuracy snapshot require?
Between 15 and 25 purchase orders you have already processed, redacted however you prefer. No ERP access, no workflow change, and no cost.
07Do we need to provide live ERP write access?
No. A read-only export and import-ready or staged output can be sufficient.
08How is data handled?
Data access, storage, retention, and deletion are agreed in writing before anything is sent. Redacted samples are preferred during evaluation, and the scope should be minimized.
FrontBeacon Order Desk
See whether the remaining manual PO workload is worth automating.
We will review your current volume, customer formats, matching problems, and ERP constraints before proposing anything.