Your team is still typing orders out of PDFs.

Half your purchase orders arrive as emails and attachments, and someone re-keys every line into your ERP — slowly, expensively, and sometimes wrong. We map where the hours go between inbox and shipment and build AI that closes the gap.

What we build for distributors

Emailed POs entered without the typing

EDI covers your biggest accounts. Everyone else sends a PDF, a spreadsheet, or three sentences in an email body — and your customer service team re-keys it line by line into NetSuite, SAP Business One, or Fishbowl. We build order entry that reads incoming POs in whatever format they arrive, matches items to your SKUs and customer pricing, flags anything ambiguous, and stages the order for one-click confirmation. Fewer errors, faster confirmations, and CSRs doing customer service instead of data entry.

RFQs answered while your competitor is still reading theirs

Quote requests are won on speed and accuracy. We build quoting assistance that reads the RFQ, checks stock and pricing against your rules, drafts the quote for review, and gets it out in minutes — because the first credible quote wins more than the cheapest one.

“Where’s my order?” answered without a phone call

Status calls and emails eat your inside team’s day. We wire order and shipping milestones to proactive updates — confirmations, tracking, delay flags — pulled from your ERP automatically, so customers stop calling to ask what your system already knows.

Invoice and PO matching that flags only the mismatches

Three-way matching is essential and brutal. We build first-pass matching that reconciles supplier invoices against POs and receipts, auto-clears the clean ones, and hands your AP team a short exception list instead of a stack.

What an engagement looks like

We start with an operations audit: 1–2 weeks inside your workflows, ending with a prioritised map of where AI actually pays off and what each opportunity is worth. Audits run $2,500–$5,000 depending on size. Builds are scoped and priced before any work begins — most land between $8,000 and $25,000 and take 3–6 weeks. No hourly billing, no surprises. See how we work →

Your data and your customers’

Pricing agreements, customer lists, and margin data are competitive assets. We design systems where your data stays in your tools, is never retained by third-party AI providers or used for model training, and order-entry automation always shows its work so a human confirms anything ambiguous before it hits the ERP. Documented in writing as part of every engagement.

Why us and not another automation shop

Cerebrum is led by a former CTO of a VC-backed startup who has designed, shipped, and scaled production AI systems. We’re tech-agnostic — no reseller kickbacks, no pushing the tool that’s easiest to sell. We build it, deploy it, and stay until your team runs it confidently without us.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an AI project for a distributor cost?

Engagements start with a 1–2 week operations audit of your order-to-cash workflow ($2,500–$5,000). Builds are scoped and priced before work begins and typically run $8,000–$25,000, delivered in 3–6 weeks.

Does this work with NetSuite, SAP Business One, or Fishbowl?

Yes — order entry, quoting, and status automation are built on the ERP you already run, not around it.

What happens when the AI is unsure about an order line?

It flags the line and stages the order for human confirmation instead of guessing. Ambiguous items never hit the ERP without a person signing off.

Ready to see what order entry actually costs you?

Book a free 30-minute operations call. No pitch — just an honest look at your workflow.

Book a free call →