PO Autopilot help center
Documentation for the whole order workflow.
Start with your first order, or go directly to intake, matching, review, settings, data, and troubleshooting guidance.
Start here
New to PO Autopilot? Three articles cover the whole loop.
- 01Quick start: process your first orderUpload a purchase order, resolve anything it asks about, and create a Shopify draft order — end to end, in about five minutes.
- 02Receive purchase orders by emailYour store gets its own intake address. Anything sent to it becomes an order automatically.
- 03Understand the review screenWhat each part of the review screen is for, and how to tell what still needs you.
04 articles
Getting started
Learn what PO Autopilot does and process a first purchase order.
- What is PO Autopilot?PO Autopilot turns the purchase orders your buyers send you into Shopify draft orders, and asks you about anything it is not sure of.
- Quick start: process your first orderUpload a purchase order, resolve anything it asks about, and create a Shopify draft order — end to end, in about five minutes.
- How PO Autopilot processes an orderWhat happens between an order arriving and the review screen: reading the document, matching it against Shopify, and flagging anything uncertain.
- Supported order formatsThe file types PO Autopilot accepts, the size limits that apply, and what to do with a format that is not on the list.
07 articles
Sending orders
Upload files, describe orders, and receive purchase orders by email.
- Upload an orderSend a purchase order file to PO Autopilot from the Orders screen.
- Describe an order in plain languageType a phone or counter order in ordinary words and let PO Autopilot turn it into a reviewable purchase order.
- Receive purchase orders by emailYour store gets its own intake address. Anything sent to it becomes an order automatically.
- Use your own email address with forwardingKeep the address your buyers already use, and forward it to your PO Autopilot intake address.
- Control who can send orders by emailAccept orders from anyone who finds your intake address, or restrict it to approved addresses and domains.
- Emails with multiple attachmentsEach supported attachment becomes its own purchase order. Attachments are never merged, and unsupported ones are ignored.
- How email body orders workWhen an email has no supported attachment, the message itself can become the order.
07 articles
Reviewing orders
Resolve exceptions and create the Shopify draft order.
- Understand the review screenWhat each part of the review screen is for, and how to tell what still needs you.
- Resolve an exceptionHow to work through the decisions an order is waiting on, and what each kind of decision asks for.
- Edit an extracted valueCorrecting what was read from the document, and how that differs from choosing which Shopify record to use.
- Exclude a line itemLeave a line off the Shopify draft order without deleting it, and put it back if you change your mind.
- Create the Shopify draft orderThe final step — check the warnings, then create the draft in your Shopify admin with one action.
- Why an order requires reviewThe reasons an order asks for a decision, and which of them stop a draft from being created.
- What happens after you confirm a matchWhich decisions PO Autopilot can remember, what it stores, and how that changes the next order.
05 articles
Buyers and products
Match companies, locations, contacts, products, and customer item numbers.
- How buyer and company matching worksHow the buyer on a purchase order is matched to a Shopify company, location and contact.
- How product matching worksThe order in which a purchase-order line is matched to a Shopify product variant, from remembered mappings down to ranked suggestions.
- Buyer-specific product mappingsTeach PO Autopilot what one buyer's own item numbers mean, without affecting any other buyer.
- Product identifiersWhich fields on your Shopify products PO Autopilot uses to recognise a purchase-order line, and how to make matching better.
- Why PO Autopilot couldn’t match a productThe reasons a line asks you to choose a product, and which of them are worth fixing permanently.
06 articles
Units, shipping and payment
Handle pack sizes, delivery methods, rates, and payment terms.
- Units of measure (UOM) and pack sizesBuyers order in cases, boxes and dozens. Shopify sells in single units. This is how the two are reconciled.
- Create and manage UOM mappingsRecord a pack size once, then review, correct or remove it from the Mappings screen.
- How shipping method matching worksThe delivery method a buyer asks for is matched against the delivery options Shopify actually offers for that order.
- Shipping price differencesWhen the freight on a purchase order differs from Shopify's rate, you are told — and Shopify's price is what gets used.
- How payment terms workHow the terms on a purchase order are reconciled with your Shopify payment-terms templates and the buyer's location settings.
- Why shipping or payment terms require reviewThe specific situations that raise a shipping or payment-terms decision, and what each one means.
04 articles
Order safety
Understand safeguards, duplicate protection, and review rules.
- How PO Autopilot prevents incorrect ordersThe safeguards that keep automation from quietly producing a wrong draft order.
- Duplicate order detectionThe same document sent twice does not become two orders — whatever route it arrives by.
- File security and malware scanningEvery file is scanned before anything reads it, and a file that fails never becomes an order.
- What counts as a processed orderWhich things that arrive become a purchase order in PO Autopilot, and which do not.
06 articles
Settings and data
Manage email intake, identifiers, mappings, privacy, and retention.
- Configure inbound emailFind your store's intake address in Settings, copy it, and give it to buyers or forward to it.
- Configure approved email sendersRestrict intake to approved senders and manage the addresses and domains allowed to send orders in.
- Configure matching identifiersAdd Shopify metafields that PO Autopilot should treat as identifiers when matching purchase-order lines and buyers.
- Manage mappingsReview everything PO Autopilot has learned about your buyers and their item codes, and remove anything that is wrong.
- Privacy and dataWhat PO Autopilot stores about your orders and buyers, how long it keeps it, and the controls you have over it.
- How long PO Autopilot keeps source documentsSource files are retained for up to 90 days and then removed automatically. Your order records are not affected.
10 articles
Troubleshooting
Diagnose common intake, matching, processing, and draft-creation problems.
- My order isn’t processingAn order is stuck on the processing screen, or has not reached review.
- My PO was rejectedThe reasons a purchase order is refused outright, and what to do about each.
- A product isn’t matchingStep-by-step checks when a line keeps asking you to choose a product.
- A buyer or company isn’t matchingStep-by-step checks when orders keep asking which company they are for.
- My emailed order didn’t appearA buyer sent an order by email and nothing showed up. Work through these in order.
- Shipping method isn’t resolvingThe order keeps asking you to choose a Shopify shipping rate, or no options are offered at all.
- Payment terms aren’t resolvingThe order keeps asking you to review payment terms, or the terms you expect are not offered.
- A draft order wasn’t createdCreating the Shopify draft order failed, or the order returned to review at the last step.
- I uploaded or emailed the same order twiceWhat happens when the same order arrives more than once, and what to do if you do end up with two.
- Something still isn’t workingWhat to gather and where to go when none of the other troubleshooting guides explains what you are seeing.