In an industry defined by movement, too much of the supply chain still stands still when it comes to data. Every day, thousands of suppliers receive emailed, faxed, verbal orders on the phone, or even handwritten purchase orders from buyers using every system imaginable. Before any product moves, someone has to manually key those details into their own OMS or ERP. It’s one of the most tedious workflows in the supply chain, and one of the most preventable.

The Persistent Drag of Manual Orders

For most suppliers, the order process is a daily balancing act between efficiency and accuracy. Every manual PO introduces potential delays and data errors: a mistyped quantity, a missing SKU, a mismatched price. Each one requires time to fix and can ripple across the entire order-to-invoice cycle.

And in the perishable goods industry, those delays aren’t just inconveniences, they create real operational and financial problems. The longer it takes to process an order, the longer the product sits waiting to move. Even a few hours of lag in entering a manual PO can impact shelf life, freshness, and delivery quality at to customer. Or you end up shipping before the order can be entered and risk non-compliance to a customer's workflow and late payment on invoices.

These inefficiencies don’t just cost time, they erode confidence and margin. Even the most advanced OMS platforms still depend on accurate inbound data, and too often, that data starts as a static email attachment. At iTradeNetwork, we’ve asked a simple but transformative question: What if every order, no matter how it arrives, could instantly become digital, accurate, and actionable? 

That’s why we’ve focused our latest development work on eliminating manual order handling at the source.

Turning a Friction Point into a Flow

That question has guided our development of a new digital capability: one designed to eliminate manual order entry altogether. Imagine a system that doesn’t just receive an email order, but reads it, converting every field, SKU, and address into clean digital data that flows directly into your OMS. That’s the concept behind our newest automation work. We’re building an always-on digital assistant that captures, cleans, and connects every inbound order without rekeying or lag.

Built for the Realities of Supply Chain Work

In our pilots with early adopters, we’re focusing on three key value areas that matter most to suppliers:

• Digitize every order: Automatically convert every purchase order into structured digital files.
  
• Integrate seamlessly: Feed those clean orders directly into your OMS, maintaining your existing workflows.
  
• Automate outbound updates: Send confirmations and order changes automatically, keeping buyers informed without manual effort.
  

Where Intelligent Automation Meets Everyday Operations

Early participants in this program are seeing measurable gains: faster order processing, fewer invoice disputes, and greater operational clarity. But perhaps most importantly, they’re reclaiming time that was once lost to repetitive, manual work.  

This work is part of iTradeNetwork’s ongoing mission to simplify and connect the world’s most complex supply chain workflows. As we test and refine this new automation layer with select partners, our focus remains the same: to help every trading partner move faster, smarter, and more confidently.

Every business faces unique order management challenges. If you're looking to optimize how orders flow through your operations, let's discuss approaches that might fit your specific needs.