Supplier2ERP
User Guide – Getting Purchase Orders Updated Without Retyping Confirmations
🎯 The 3-Tier Extraction System
Supplier2ERP tries the cheapest, most reliable method first and only reaches for AI when it genuinely needs it. Every document goes through the same three tiers, in order.
| Tier | What it does | When it runs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Code Anchoring — finds your product codes in the document by matching against your own ERP item catalog. | Always tried first. No templates needed — works from day one, on any supplier’s layout. |
| 2 | Pattern Learning — extraction rules saved automatically after a supplier’s format has been processed once. | Used automatically once a supplier’s layout has been seen before — faster, and without AI. |
| 3 | AI Verification — reads the email and attachments to extract or confirm the data. | Only when code anchoring and learned patterns are not enough. |
🔄 How Supplier2ERP Works – Visual Flow
Arrives
Found
Dates Read
Purchase Order
Report
Codes are always found relative to your own item catalog, so quantities and prices are read from the lines around each code rather than from a fixed column position — this is what lets Supplier2ERP work on a supplier’s very first email, before any template exists for them.
⚖️ Difference Validation – Your Safety Net
Every extracted quantity, price and date is compared against your purchase order before anything is written. A small, expected difference — the kind that happens every day — can be auto-accepted. Anything larger is flagged for you and the purchase order is left untouched until you review it.
Extracted values are also sanity-checked on their own terms: a negative quantity or an absurd price never reaches your ERP, confirmation or no confirmation.
_Supplier2ERP/MANUAL when it came through _Supplier2ERP/IMPORT. The pending review is never buried.
🚀 Getting Started
- Connect your mailbox on the dashboard. Supplier2ERP monitors it for incoming supplier confirmations. Or add the BOTS4.me Mailbox and forward confirmations to us — see Forward to Us below.
- Switch Supplier2ERP on. It starts in DEMO — it reads your supplier confirmations and reports what it would update; nothing is written to your ERP. Without a mailbox, it reads the confirmations you forward to the BOTS4.me Mailbox.
- Tell Supplier2ERP which suppliers to import. Once your ERP is connected, it picks up the vendors that have open purchase orders and emails you the list; contacts set up only as vendors in your ERP are read too. For any other supplier, drag one of their emails into
_Supplier2ERP/IMPORT— the folder appears after the first run. Nothing is imported from any other sender. - Set your tolerance thresholds — how big a price or quantity difference can be auto-accepted before it is flagged.
- Connect your ERP. Still in DEMO, real confirmations are matched to real purchase orders, but nothing is written.
- Review a few reports. What you see is exactly what would change once you go live.
- Switch Mode to LIVE (with ERP Updates on). From that moment, confirmed quantities, prices and dates update your purchase orders automatically.
⚙️ Dashboard Settings Reference
Core features
| Setting | Plan | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ERP Matching | Personal | Matches extracted supplier data with existing purchase orders using order numbers, product codes and supplier information. |
| Email reports | All plans | How you hear about confirmations that went through cleanly, including those confirmed exactly as ordered: After each confirmation, One email per run, a Daily summary or a Weekly summary. The summaries list every supplier, order and order line of the period, with an Excel copy, and say so when nothing arrived. Confirmations that need your attention are always emailed straight away. |
| ERP Updates | Personal | Writes confirmed quantities and prices back to your ERP. Off means read-only: differences are only reported, even in LIVE. |
| Template Extraction | Personal | Uses templates learned from previous emails from the same supplier for faster, more accurate extraction. |
| Daily delay alerts | All plans | Once a day, emails the deliveries that are overdue or at risk. Choose Off, Supplier-confirmed orders only (the orders whose supplier confirmation Supplier2ERP processed) or All open purchase orders — every open order in your ERP, even without an emailed confirmation, plus a weekly overview (from the Personal plan). |
| AI Extraction Fallback | Personal | When code anchoring and learned patterns find no products, AI reads the email and attachments as a last resort (billed per use). |
| Scanned PDF Files | Personal | Reads supplier confirmations that arrive as a scan or a photograph rather than as text, using OCR. Off means a scanned confirmation is reported for manual entry instead of being read. |
| Pre-processing | Family | Reads from a hidden queue folder managed by AutoSPAM instead of your INBOX. Requires AutoSPAM with Pre-processing enabled. |
| Auto-Update Quantities | Family | Lets confirmed quantity differences be written automatically. Off means differences are reported but never applied. |
| Auto-Update Prices | Business | Lets confirmed price differences be written automatically. Off means differences are reported but never applied. |
| Automatic Repurchase | Business | Refused, cut or overdue quantities are proposed as a draft order from an alternative supplier of the same product. |
| Repurchase Live Ordering | Enterprise | Actually creates the repurchase draft orders in your ERP instead of only reporting them. Has no effect unless Automatic Repurchase is also on. |
Tolerance and reporting knobs
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Max item differences | 5 items | How many order lines can differ from the confirmation before the whole order is flagged for manual review instead of being auto-updated. |
| Max price/quantity change | 15% | The largest acceptable change, in percent, for any single line’s price or quantity. Anything bigger is flagged for review. |
| Delivery at-risk horizon | 7 days | A confirmed delivery date inside this many days counts as at risk and appears in the daily delay alerts before it is actually late. |
| Delay report lookback | 90 days | Purchase orders older than this are not watched when Daily delay alerts is set to All open purchase orders. |
| Send reports of updated orders to | — | Who receives the reports of supplier confirmations that went through without problems, and the daily or weekly summary. Comma-separated; empty means your account email. |
| Send confirmations that need a hand to | — | Who receives the report of a confirmation that was only partly applied, failed or waits for your review. Always sent straight away, whatever you chose under Email reports. Comma-separated; empty means your account email. |
| Send delayed-deliveries reports to | your account email | Who receives the delayed-deliveries and repurchase reports. Comma-separated. Left empty, the delayed-deliveries report goes to your account email and your management emails. |
🛡️ Access Modes
Three modes let you test at your own pace, each one giving Supplier2ERP a little more access than the last.
| Mode | Access | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Sandbox Demo | None | Sample supplier documents only, at BOTS4.me/demo. No ERP connection needed. |
| Demo Mode | Mailbox + ERP read | Real confirmations are matched to real purchase orders. Nothing is written — reports show exactly what would change. |
| Live Mode | Mailbox + ERP read & write | Full automation: confirmations are processed and purchase orders updated automatically. |
⌛ Delayed Deliveries & Automatic Repurchase
Two features look beyond the confirmation you just received, at the purchase orders still waiting on one.
Daily Delay Alerts
One daily email lists the purchase order lines that are overdue, or about to miss their confirmed delivery date within your at-risk horizon. You choose which orders it watches: only those whose supplier confirmation Supplier2ERP processed, or every open order in your ERP — including orders whose supplier never emailed a confirmation at all. Late deliveries surface before they reach your production line.
Automatic Repurchase
When a supplier refuses or cuts a confirmed quantity, or a delivery goes overdue, the missing amount can be proposed as a draft purchase order from an alternative supplier of the same product. This starts in simulation mode: the proposal is only reported by email. Turning on Repurchase Live Ordering creates the draft order in your ERP for your review — it is never confirmed automatically.
📊 Reading the Report
✅ Success
Confirmations fully matched and, in Automation Mode, already applied to your purchase order.
⚠️ Partial
Some lines matched, others differed beyond your tolerance or could not be read — flagged for your review.
❌ Failed / Skipped
Nothing usable was extracted, or the email was not a supplier confirmation at all — left in your INBOX, or moved to _Supplier2ERP/MANUAL when it came through _Supplier2ERP/IMPORT.
❓ Troubleshooting
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| A confirmation was not matched to any purchase order | Code anchoring found no product codes it recognized from your ERP catalog — check the codes in the document actually exist in your ERP. |
| A quantity or price change was reported but not applied | Either Auto-Update Quantities / Auto-Update Prices is off, or the change is larger than your Max price/quantity change threshold. |
| The whole order was flagged instead of just one line | More lines differed than your Max item differences setting allows. |
| A repurchase order was reported but never created | That is Repurchase Live Ordering being off — Automatic Repurchase defaults to simulation only. |
| A supplier’s format is still going through AI every time | Pattern learning saves a template after a format is seen once; if it keeps missing, the layout may be varying enough between emails that no stable pattern is found. |
📨 Forward to Us — No Mailbox Connection Needed
You do not have to connect a mailbox at all. In BOTS4.me/bots → Settings → Supplier2ERP, click Add Source and add the BOTS4.me Mailbox — one click, nothing to connect, no password. Then forward emails to supplier2erp@bots4.me. While Demo Mode is on you get a preview by email; once you switch it off, Supplier2ERP updates the purchase order in your ERP for real. So we only need access to your ERP, never to your mailbox.
Who may forward: set it in Supplier2ERP → Control → Forward to us – accept email from. Empty: only your account email address. Filled in: exactly the addresses you type (up to 6) — they replace your account address, so add it too if you also forward.
Before anything is written to your ERP we verify that the email really came from your address (DKIM). When your mail provider does not sign outgoing mail, you confirm the email once with one click. Every forwarded email is deleted from our mailbox right after processing — after 7 days at the latest if it could not be processed. Use it while you evaluate us, or for good if you prefer never to share mailbox access.
The same email forwarded twice is processed only once. With Demo Mode off, the sender gets a short receipt by email after each forwarded email: processed, or not processed and where to see why.
📬 Logs in Your Mailbox
- Where: every mailbox gets a LOGS folder inside the bot’s own folder, for example _Mail2ERP/LOGS. Each bot keeps its own.
- What: the same rows as the Logs tab, one message per row. Nothing is sent by email — the rows are written straight into the folder.
- Unread means it needs you: only rows that need your decision arrive unread. All other rows, warnings included, arrive already read.
- One-click buttons: rows about an email carry the same buttons as the dashboard. A button that files the email is named after the folder it goes to, for example ALLOW or SPAM. A button opens a short confirm page, no login needed, and works for 7 days. The result arrives as a new row, with an undo button where one exists.
- Decide from the log: a row that needs your decision also shows the names of the email’s attachments and its first few lines, so you rarely need to open the email itself.
- Housekeeping: the folder keeps the latest 100 rows for up to 30 days. The full log stays in your dashboard.
- Safe by design: genuine log messages exist only inside LOGS folders, never in your inbox, and the confirm page never asks for a password.
- Switch: Logs in your mailbox, in the bot’s feature list on the Control tab. On by default from the Personal plan.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
💡 Folders starting with _ (e.g. _Supplier2ERP) are auto-created by the app — don’t rename or delete them.
What document formats are supported?
PDF, Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), HTML, email body text, and images via OCR — virtually any format a supplier sends.
What ERPs does it work with?
Odoo, ERPNext, Zoho, Dolibarr, Business Central online, QuickBooks Online, Xero and SAP Business One, each with its own update strategy — batch, whole order, or individual item. Any other ERP with an API is connected on request.
How does it find my product codes without a template?
Code anchoring searches the document for codes that exist in your own ERP catalog, then reads the quantity and price around each one it finds. No template is needed for a supplier’s first email.
What if prices or quantities differ from my order?
Small differences inside your tolerance can be auto-accepted; larger ones are flagged and the update is skipped until you review it. The confirmation email stays unread — in your INBOX, or in _Supplier2ERP/MANUAL when it came through _Supplier2ERP/IMPORT — so the pending review is visible at a glance.
Does it learn a supplier’s format?
Yes. After processing a supplier’s layout once, extraction rules are saved. Future documents from the same supplier process faster, without needing AI.
Where do flagged or failed emails go?
They stay unread in your INBOX so you don’t miss them — or, if they came through _Supplier2ERP/IMPORT, they are moved to _Supplier2ERP/MANUAL. Successfully processed confirmations are filed into _Supplier2ERP/PROCESSED.
Supplier2ERP missed a confirmation. Can I make it try again?
Yes. Drag the email into _Supplier2ERP/IMPORT and it is read on the next run — in Automation Mode even if it was already tried and failed. From then on Supplier2ERP also imports everything from that sender, and the sender is marked as a supplier so Mail2ERP leaves it alone. The folder is created for you while Supplier2ERP is active.
I don’t want Supplier2ERP to import a particular supplier. How do I stop it?
Drag one email from that supplier into _Supplier2ERP/DO_NOT_IMPORT. From the next run on, Supplier2ERP no longer imports anything from that sender, and the email is moved back to your INBOX (or to _Supplier2ERP/MANUAL when Separate Suppliers is on). The sender stays marked as a supplier, so Mail2ERP does not import it either. Delay reports and repurchase for that supplier keep working. To undo it, drag an email from the same sender into _Supplier2ERP/IMPORT.
Can I test without affecting my ERP?
Yes. In DEMO Supplier2ERP reads your purchase orders but writes nothing, with full reports showing what would change. First month free.
Does it work with Mail2ERP?
Yes. Mail2ERP handles incoming customer orders on the sales side; Supplier2ERP handles incoming supplier confirmations on the procurement side. Both watch your mailbox.
Does this use AI? We are not allowed to.
Set AI Mode to Off and no language model is called and no document is sent to an AI provider. Confirmations that list your product codes with quantities in a readable table are read normally, by matching against your ERP catalog. Scanned or unusual layouts are passed to you for manual entry instead of being guessed. If your compliance team needs it in writing, ask us and we will confirm it for your file.
How does it handle delivery dates?
Supplier2ERP extracts confirmed delivery dates from the document and updates the corresponding line items in your purchase order. Supports multiple date formats.
🔒 What Supplier2ERP Will Never Do
- Write to your ERP while in DEMO.
- Create a live repurchase order unless Repurchase Live Ordering is switched on — the default is a report only.
- Match a document to a purchase order without checking the product codes against your own catalog first.
- Apply a price or quantity change beyond the tolerance you set without flagging it for review.
- Confirm a repurchase order on your behalf — it is always created as a draft.
- Hide a flagged or unreadable confirmation from you — it stays unread in your INBOX or in
_Supplier2ERP/MANUAL.