What is order-to-cash automation, and which parts can you automate?
Updated October 2026 · By Scott Thompson, Founder
The short answer
Order-to-cash automation removes manual work between a customer's purchase order and the cash landing: capturing the order, entering it, acknowledging it, shipping and invoicing it, and applying the payment. The heaviest keying sits at the front, turning emailed PDFs and EDI 850s into sales orders. DynamoDocs automates that document side, from customer PO to a validated sales order in your ERP plus the 855, 856, and 810 your EDI partners expect; invoicing and cash application stay in your ERP.
The stages of order-to-cash
Order capture (the PO arrives by email, portal, or EDI), order entry (someone keys it into the ERP), acknowledgment (the customer is told what will ship, when, and at what price), fulfillment and ship notice, customer invoicing, and cash application and collections. Each stage has its own tools, and most of the manual work concentrates in the first two.
Why order entry is the bottleneck
Customers send orders in whatever format their system produces: a PDF from one, an Excel sheet from another, an 850 from the large accounts that mandate EDI. Someone reads each one, finds the customer and the items, and types every line into the ERP. It is slow, it is where wrong quantities and prices get introduced, and it is the step that delays everything after it.
What DynamoDocs automates
Customer POs arrive in a shared mailbox, by upload, or as EDI. AI reads the header and every line without a template per customer, validation checks the order against your rules, and a clean order posts to your ERP as a sales order with the customer's PO number carried across. Orders that break a rule wait for order entry with the problem named on the field. For EDI customers, DynamoDocs can send the 997 and 855 automatically once the order passes validation, an 865 when they send an 860 change, and the 856 ship notice and 810 invoice later in the cycle.
What stays in your ERP
Creating the AR invoice inside the ERP, applying the customer's payment, and running collections stay where they are today. DynamoDocs gets the order in correctly and keeps the trading partner answered; it does not replace your receivables process.
Order-to-cash automation by ERP
In Acumatica, a customer PO becomes a sales order of type SO and an RFQ a quote of type QT, through the contract-based REST API. In Sage Intacct, it becomes an Order Entry sales order with the customer PO as the reference number. In NetSuite, a Sales Order with the PO in Other Ref. Num. In SAP S/4HANA, a sales order with the customer's PO number, through OData. In Business Central, a sales order through the v2.0 API. ERPs without a dedicated connector receive the same validated order as JSON to a REST endpoint or as a CSV import.
Related questions
Is order-to-cash automation the same as AR automation?
No. AR automation usually means invoicing, payment application, and collections. Order-to-cash covers those plus the order itself. DynamoDocs covers the order and the EDI replies, not the receivables steps.
Do we need EDI to automate order entry?
No. Most customers email a PDF, and those can be automated the same way. EDI matters for the partners who mandate it, and DynamoDocs handles both in one queue.
What happens to a line in the customer's own part numbers?
It is read exactly as the customer wrote it. With item-catalog matching on, a line whose description fits one of your items gets a suggested match for a person to approve; there is no per-customer SKU cross-reference table, so otherwise an order-entry clerk sets your item on that line with the original beside it. Lines missing a field your ERP requires are held instead of posting half right.
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See it on your documents
Bring a real invoice, PO, or RFQ and watch DynamoDocs take it from inbox to posted in your ERP in about 30 minutes.
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