How PO Autopilot processes an order

Every order takes the same path, whether it arrived as an upload, an email, or a description you typed.

1. The document is checked

Before anything reads it, the file is scanned for malware. Nothing is opened, decoded or extracted until that scan comes back clean. A file that fails the scan never becomes an order. See File security and malware scanning.

2. The document is read

PO Autopilot reads the document and pulls out the things a purchase order carries: the PO number, the buyer, the ship-to address, the requested delivery method, payment terms, and the line items with their quantities, units and prices.

Scans and photographs go through the same step — the text is recognised first, then read the same way as a PDF.

3. What was read is matched against Shopify

This is the part that makes it useful. Each extracted value is matched against your actual Shopify data:

• The buyer’s name, account number, email, phone or ship-to address is matched to a Shopify company, company location and contact.
• Each line’s item code is matched to a Shopify product variant.
• The purchase-order unit — cases, boxes, dozens — is converted into whole Shopify units.
• The requested delivery method is matched to a delivery option Shopify actually offers for this order.
• Payment terms are matched to your Shopify payment-terms templates.

Anything you have taught it before is applied first. A buyer account number you have mapped, or an item code you have mapped for that company, resolves without being re-derived.

4. Uncertainty is surfaced, not guessed

When a match is not certain, PO Autopilot does not pick one and move on. It raises the question for you.

There are three different outcomes here, and the review screen distinguishes them:

• Resolved. Matched confidently. Nothing is asked.
• Suggested. A likely match has been applied to the line, but you are asked to confirm it. You will see wording like Confirm the product we matched.
• Unresolved. Nothing good enough was found, so you are asked to choose.

A suggestion is never treated as a decision. It is filled in to save you the typing, and it still waits for your agreement before the order is ready.

5. You review, then create the draft

You settle whatever is open, calculate, and create the draft order. Shopify prices the order; PO Autopilot does not compute your totals itself.

Why it works this way

The alternative — resolving everything automatically and letting you catch mistakes afterwards — puts the error in Shopify before anyone sees it. Wrong products on a real order cost more to unwind than a question costs to answer.

So the design is deliberately conservative: confident matches go through, anything else becomes a short question, and nothing about your Shopify catalogue is ever invented to make an order fit.