Even in 2025, many manufacturers and distributors still rely on manual order entry. Purchase orders come in as PDFs, emails, even faxes. Teams then rekey this data into ERP systems line by line.
It’s familiar. It’s straightforward. It’s also incredibly expensive.
What looks like a simple task—typing in line items—actually introduces delays, risks, and inefficiencies that ripple across your entire business. And those costs compound fast.
Let’s look at the true business impact of relying on manual processes to handle sales orders.
When teams are spending time on data entry, they’re not spending time on what really matters—serving customers, solving problems, or driving new revenue.
In many organizations, customer service and inside sales reps spend 20–40% of their time on manual order handling. That’s one to two full workdays per week per person—just entering data.
Multiply that across a team, and the hours (and salary dollars) stack up quickly.
According to APQC benchmarks, the average error rate for manual order entry is 1%–3%. That might sound small—until you realize that in an environment handling thousands of orders per month, it results in dozens (if not hundreds) of issues.
These errors often lead to:
Mis-shipments
Returns
Re-invoicing
Customer complaints
Lost revenue
Every error must be identified, corrected, and communicated—which introduces additional manual work and costs.
Manual entry introduces latency. Orders sit in inboxes. They’re queued for entry. They’re delayed due to staffing gaps or competing priorities.
In industries where lead times are tight, even a 4–6 hour delay can result in missed shipments, production downtime, or breach of SLAs.
Speed matters—and manual entry slows you down.
Repetitive, low-value tasks contribute to employee frustration and attrition. Manual order entry is often cited as a “mind-numbing” task that drains energy from high-potential teams.
In a time where hiring and retaining skilled operations staff is difficult, burning out your top performers is a risk you can’t afford.
Every time someone manually enters an order, there’s a chance for a typo, misread value, or copy-paste error. Over time, this leads to data fragmentation across your ERP and CRM systems—making it harder to report accurately or plan ahead.
Good data starts with clean input. Manual order entry compromises both.
Manual entry doesn’t just cost time and money—it costs momentum. Teams bogged down by order rekeying are slower to:
Respond to customer needs
Launch new offerings
Identify upsell opportunities
Adapt to supply chain changes
In 2025, agility is everything. The faster you can process, analyze, and act on order data, the more responsive your business becomes. Manual systems hold you back.
Let’s say your customer service team handles 1,500 manual orders per month.
Each order takes ~12 minutes to enter
That’s 300 hours/month = 3.75 FTEs
At $60K/year per employee, that’s $225,000 annually
Now factor in rework, returns, lost sales, and opportunity cost—and it’s easy to see why manual order entry is more than just a minor inefficiency.
If the costs are this clear, why haven’t more companies moved away from manual entry?
“It’s how we’ve always done it.” Legacy processes are hard to challenge.
“Our customers won’t change.” But automation doesn’t require them to.
“We don’t have the bandwidth to upgrade.” But the right tools integrate with your existing stack.
“We’re not ready for AI.” But automation isn’t all-or-nothing—it can start with basic order intake.
The reality? It’s not a technology problem. It’s a priority one.
Modern platforms like Conexiom can process emailed or PDF-based POs and convert them into clean, accurate ERP entries—without human touch.
Purchase order is received via email
Automation extracts and validates line item data
Data is pushed directly to your ERP system
Only exceptions are flagged for review
This shift from manual to touchless processing results in:
80%+ reduction in order entry time
90%+ reduction in errors
Fewer customer escalations
Happier, more strategic teams
Getting started doesn’t require a full digital overhaul. It begins with identifying:
High-volume customers who submit repeatable orders
Current exception rates and processing times
The internal cost of manual handling
From there, automation can be introduced in phases—starting with your most impactful areas.
Manual order entry might seem manageable, but it’s a silent drain on your organization’s time, energy, and profitability.
In 2025, automation isn’t about replacing people. It’s about enabling them to do more impactful work—while orders process accurately, automatically, and without delay.
Want to see how much manual order entry is costing your business? Try Conexiom’s Ideal Order ROI Calculator or schedule a demo to see real-world savings.