The end of double data entry
Almost every window is custom-sized — which meant every window order was keyed twice: once into the internal system, once into the manufacturer's. At 500–1,000 orders a day, that's not a workflow. That's a typing pool. We replaced it with an API and a set of exception queues.
Custom products, duplicated keystrokes, invisible errors
Windows can't be picked off a shelf — nearly every one is made to measure. The branch keyed the order into the internal system, then keyed the same order into the manufacturer's system. Two entries meant twice the work and twice the typos — and errors surfaced in the worst possible way: when the wrong window physically arrived at a branch, weeks later, with no way to trace what went wrong.
Before: if an order was wrong, they found out when the wrong window showed up.Error handling by delivery truck is the most expensive kind
Key the intent once — integrate everything else
The branch creates only the order header: which customer, which job. The platform talks to the manufacturer by API, waits for the order file to come back, and populates the lines — the hundred windows, the pricing, the margins — automatically.
Order pending
Waiting on the manufacturer's file — visible, aging-tracked, never forgotten in an inbox.
File exceptions
The vendor's file is broken or the format changed — caught at ingestion, not at delivery.
Business rules
Validations stop bad orders early — wrong window sizes, missing approvals, orders over value thresholds needing sign-off.
The action column
Every error comes with its fix: update the PO, correct the line, push back via API. One click, both systems updated.
112 window guys became one expert team
Errors used to be solved one-off at whichever branch the wrong window arrived at. Pulling all exceptions into central queues let a small expert team handle every branch's problems — faster, consistently, and with the tooling to fix things in one click.
Errors caught before manufacturing
Validation moved from "when the truck arrives" to "when the order is placed." Wrong sizes and rule violations stop at the queue, not at the job site.
Branch-level catalogs
Each branch operates almost as its own company — so branches only see the window manufacturers they actually carry. Location-specific control runs through the whole platform.
A thousand orders a day, one calm queue
The happy path is easy to automate. The value is in what you do with everything that falls off it.Why the exception queues, not the API, are the real product
More from this engagement
The distributor that stopped typing
The full engagement: 1.5M documents, 5M audited lines, governed pricing, and B2B e-commerce at scale.
Read the story → Solution storyMatched once, remembered forever
Customer PDF orders translated automatically — 95,507 orders across 77 customers.
Read the story → Solution storyEvery price on purpose
The pricing loop that keeps margins intact on every one of those orders.
Read the story →Where does your team still enter the same data twice?
Double entry is the easiest expensive problem to find — and one of the most satisfying to eliminate.
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