Supplier side · purchasing
Supplier order confirmation automation, line by line against the PO
Order confirmation automation means software reads each supplier’s order confirmation and checks it against the purchase order it answers. ERP Agent does this for distributors line by line: it reads the PDF, .msg or email, places each line on its PO row, converts units and price bases, marks changes in price, quantity and delivery date, and updates the purchase order in your ERP once a buyer approves.
What does a supplier order confirmation look like?
You send a purchase order; the supplier answers with an order confirmation, or order acknowledgement, in its own layout, with its own codes and descriptions, often in its own language. It may confirm kilograms against a PO line in metres, quote per tonne where your PO holds a price per kilo, list an alloy surcharge separately, add freight and packaging lines, move a delivery date, or answer three purchase orders in one PDF.
Someone has to compare every line with the PO. When that check is rushed, the difference turns up later, as an invoice that disagrees with the PO or a delivery date sales has already promised a customer. A checked confirmation keeps the purchase order accurate for goods receipt, invoice checks and the dates your reps give customers, and your buyers get their time back for the work that needs them, such as the call with the supplier about the late delivery.
How does purchase order confirmation matching work?
The buyer forwards the email and approves the result. The agent does everything in between.
The confirmation arrives
Forward the supplier’s email to your supplier inbox in ERP Agent, or upload the PDF, .msg or email, optionally with an instruction such as “this answers PO 31870 and 31877; prices are per tonne”.
It finds the purchase order
The agent reads the PO number and fetches that purchase order from the ERP. If the ERP has no purchase order with that number, the agent rereads the document once; if it still finds none, the line is flagged for you to enter the number. A confirmation covering several POs is compared with each.
It places every line on a PO row
An identical product code comes first. Otherwise the supplier’s description is matched against that purchase order’s lines only, even when it is written in another language, so the agent never proposes a product you did not order. A second check looks for contradictions in grade, dimension or standard and lowers the confidence, giving its reason.
It makes the figures comparable
Kilograms, tonnes, metres and pieces are converted in code using the product’s unit weight from the ERP, so the figure written back is in the PO’s unit. Prices per tonne or per 100 kg become a price per kilo; per-unit surcharges are added to the base price, as the PO usually holds the all-in price.
It marks what changed
Quantity, price and delivery date appear as ordered and as confirmed, with differences marked and graded by severity, so price rises, short or zero quantities and later dates stand out; sort by difference to put the most important rows on top. A surcharge mentioned without a figure is flagged, because the confirmed price is then only a floor: the PO keeps its own price, while quantity and date are still updated.
A buyer approves and the PO is updated
Keep a row as confirmed, edit it, or remove it. Charge lines such as freight are never written to the purchase order, because the PO holds the goods. Approving asks once more, then writes the confirmed price, quantity and delivery date of the goods rows in the table to the purchase order in your ERP.
Example: one confirmation, four kinds of line
A steel supplier answers a three-line PO in German, with a price per tonne, a separate alloy surcharge and a packaging line the PO never had.
Order confirmation AB-55812, answering PO 31870
- Pos 10 · Flachstahl 100x10 S355J2 · 2,0 t · 1.150,00 EUR/t · Liefertermin 06.11.2026
- Pos 20 · Rundstahl 40 mm 1.4404 · 60 m · 18,40 EUR/m + Legierungszuschlag 3,10 EUR/m · Liefertermin 04.12.2026
- Pos 30 · Winkel 50x50x5 S235JR · 1.200 kg · 1,05 EUR/kg · Liefertermin 06.11.2026
- Pos 40 · Verpackung und Verladung · 1 Stk · 42,00 EUR
| PO row | Qty ordered → confirmed | Price PO → confirmed | Date requested → confirmed | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Flat bar 100x10 S355 | 2,000 → 2,000 kg | 1.15 → 1.15 €/kg | 6 Nov → 6 Nov | OK |
| 2 · Round bar 40 mm 1.4404 | 60 → 60 m | 21.00 → 21.50 €/m incl. surcharge | 6 Nov → 4 Dec | Price and date |
| 3 · Angle 50x50x5 S235 | 1,500 → 1,200 kg | 1.05 → 1.05 €/kg | 6 Nov → 6 Nov | 300 kg short |
| None (charge line) | 1 pc | 42.00 € | – | Charge, not written to the PO |
Illustrative example. Nothing is written to the PO until a buyer approves, and the charge line is never written to it.
What does the buyer see before the PO changes?
- The original beside the lines. The supplier’s document opens next to the comparison, so any row can be checked against the source.
- Confidence and reasoning per row, including any contradiction the second check found.
- Goods lines without a PO row are named above the table, and approval waits until each one is placed on a row or removed. Freight and packaging lines are labelled as charges, so the amount is easy to check; they are never written to the purchase order, which holds the goods.
- Edit before you approve. Correct a quantity, price or date in any row, point a line at a different PO row, add a missing row or remove one; approval writes what the table shows.
Why template-based capture falls short on order confirmations
OCR and RPA tools copy fields from a confirmation as the supplier wrote them: the supplier’s codes, units and price basis. Each supplier layout needs its own template, and a person still has to work out that “Rundstahl 40 mm 1.4404, 18,40 EUR/m + Legierungszuschlag” is PO row 2 at an all-in price of 21.00 €/m, and whether anything really changed.
ERP Agent does that part. It places every line on your PO row, converts units and price bases, and marks only real changes, with its reasoning on each row. There is no template per supplier to build or maintain, so a confirmation from a new supplier is handled like any other.
Suppliers who send EDI order responses (EDIFACT ORDRSP) carry on as today. ERP Agent takes the PDFs and emails that land in a buyer’s inbox, which is where the manual checking happens.
Which ERP does it update?
ERP Agent integrates with Business Central, SAP, NetSuite, Visma, IFS, Sage and any other ERP or CRM. The comparison reads your purchase orders, and the approval writes the confirmed values back. We set up the purchase-order connection for your company during onboarding.
| Purchase-order connection | In your ERP |
|---|---|
| ERP systems | Business Central, SAP, NetSuite, Visma, IFS, Sage, Jeeves and any other ERP |
| What the agent reads | Purchase orders and their rows; product unit weights |
| What the approval writes | Confirmed price, quantity and delivery date on approved PO rows |
ERP Agent is GDPR-compliant, and models run with zero data retention. Before setup, we agree which data the agent needs and which systems it can access. More in security and data handling.
Built to fit how your purchasing team works
- Your buyers stay in control. Every change to a purchase order is approved by a person, and approval writes exactly what the table shows.
- Works on top of your ERP. No replacement project: the agent reads your purchase orders and writes the confirmed values back, and your ERP stays the system your team works in.
- Changes are caught before they cost you. A price rise, a short quantity or a later date shows up when the confirmation arrives, before goods receipt, before the invoice check and before sales promises the customer a date.
- Every supplier’s own format. German, Swedish or English; per tonne, per 100 kg or per metre; one PO or three in one PDF.
ERP Agent in numbers
- 95%
- average automation across our customers
- Over 95%
- accuracy in quote-line automation at LVI-WaBeK
- 4–7 min
- per line for a sales rep creating quotes and orders by hand, according to our case study
- Live
- with steel, HVAC and fastener distributors
The quickest way to see it is on your own documents: bring recent confirmations from your most awkward suppliers, next to the POs they answer. The LVI-WaBeK story shows how a distributor uses ERP Agent on the sales side.
Who it is for, and what else the supplier inbox handles
Distributors whose suppliers rarely follow the PO’s format: steel stockholders whose mills confirm in tonnes with alloy surcharges, fastener distributors with long runs of near-identical sizes, HVAC wholesalers and fittings distributors where one dimension or pressure class separates two products, and industrial MRO suppliers buying across many brands.
The same supplier inbox handles shipment lists, turned into the ERP’s XML goods-receipt file, and material certificates, with heat numbers cross-checked. On the sales side, the agent identifies the right products in customer requests and prepares quotes and sales orders that land in your ERP, CRM or other system: see quote automation, order entry automation and, for customer POs, purchase order to sales order automation.
Frequently asked questions
What is order confirmation automation?
Software that reads supplier order confirmations (also called order acknowledgements), finds the purchase order each one answers and checks every line for changes in product, quantity, price and delivery date. With ERP Agent, a buyer approves before the PO is updated.
How does purchase order confirmation matching handle different product codes?
The agent tries an identical code on the PO’s lines first, then matches the supplier’s description against those lines only, even when it is written in another language. It never proposes a product that is not on the PO, and each row shows its confidence and reasoning.
Can it handle confirmations in other units or with surcharges?
Yes. Units are converted in code using the product’s unit weight from the ERP, prices per tonne or per 100 kg become prices per kilo, and per-unit surcharges are added to the base price. A surcharge stated without a figure, or a unit that cannot be converted, is flagged for the buyer.
Does it update the purchase order automatically?
Once a buyer approves. The confirmed price, quantity and delivery date of the goods rows in the table are then written to the purchase order (a price whose surcharge has no figure yet stays as it is). Your team decides what reaches the PO.
What if one confirmation answers several purchase orders?
The agent reads each PO number, fetches each purchase order and places every line on a row of the PO it answers. On approval each purchase order is updated separately.
Which ERP systems does supplier order confirmation automation work with?
Any ERP. ERP Agent integrates with Business Central, SAP, NetSuite, Visma, IFS, Sage and any other ERP or CRM. For order confirmations, the agent reads purchase orders from your ERP and writes the confirmed values back; we set up that connection for your company during onboarding. See the integrations overview.
Is this the same as invoice matching?
No, it comes earlier. A confirmation arrives before the goods and the invoice, and checking it then keeps the PO in line with what the supplier agreed to. Goods receipt and the invoice check start from correct figures, and the dates sales gives customers hold.
Related
- Material certificate automation, from the mill’s PDF to your archive
- ERP integrations for AI quote and order automation, on any ERP system
- AI quote and order automation for Business Central
- Steel distribution quote automation for stockholders and metal service centres
- Order entry automation for distributors: customer POs to sales orders
- Purchase order vs sales order: the difference, and which comes first
Let’s look at your quote workflow
See the order confirmation review
Book a 30-minute call to see the comparison screen on confirmations like yours, and what connecting your ERP’s purchase orders involves.
- Your requests and product catalogue
- Your pricing and review process
- A clear scope for the next step
Lauri Pelkonen
Founder & CEO
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