In a highly regulated industry, accuracy is everything. A leading Canadian distributor needed a way to move faster without sacrificing compliance. As order volumes grew, their purchase order process struggled to keep up. Spreadsheets, PDFs, scattered databases, and email threads made the work slow and error-prone.
They partnered with our team to modernize the purchase order lifecycle using Microsoft 365. The mandate was clear: centralize the workflow, reduce manual data entry, and build a scalable foundation for automation.
Automate purchase order processing end to end with Microsoft Power Automate, Power Apps, and Dynamics 365 Business Central, while integrating a custom AI model for document extraction.
What success looks like:
Project Duration: 6 weeks
Technologies: Power Automate, Power Apps, Dynamics 365 Business Central, SharePoint, Custom AI model
The existing process was a classic case of information sprawl. Data was scattered across PDFs, customer tables, product lookup tables, and email threads. Each purchase order demanded hours of attention:
This created bottlenecks, introduced avoidable errors, and complicated audits. Data lived in too many places, and some records conflicted with one another, which made validation a constant chore. The client also brought a pre-trained AI model to the table, which introduced constraints and required careful orchestration inside the workflow.
What needed to change: bring documents, master data, and business rules into one coordinated flow that the team could trust.
We designed a multi-step, human-in-the-loop workflow that blends automation, AI, and targeted validation. The result is a reliable, auditable pipeline that creates clean sales orders in Business Central with minimal manual effort.
How it works:
The biggest shift was cultural. The team saw how automation can remove friction and give people time back for higher-value work. The project fostered confidence and excitement within the team, showing how digital transformation can make work easier, more accurate, and more rewarding.
With a modern, automated workflow in place, the organization is well-positioned to scale confidently. The next phase focuses on making the process even more seamless and intelligent.
Plans include enabling email ingestion to fully automate flow initiation from monitored mailboxes, expanding template support to accommodate additional order formats and vendors, and introducing analytics dashboards to track cycle times, exceptions, and overall accuracy. Continuous improvement is also a priority, with periodic AI model tuning scheduled to enhance extraction fidelity and keep the system performing at its best.
We delivered a production-grade automation that transforms manual purchase orders into clean, structured sales orders in Business Central. At the heart of the solution is AI-powered data extraction, which eliminates the repetitive task of parsing PDFs, paired with human-in-the-loop quality control to maintain trust and accuracy without slowing the process.
Most importantly, the solution provides a scalable blueprint that the organization can replicate across regions, customers, and order types, ensuring long-term value and adaptability.
If you’re exploring purchase order automation with Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and Business Central, we can help you move from proof-of-concept to production quickly and safely.
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