Trade Orders and Repeat Orders Taken on WhatsApp
This recipe takes orders from known trade accounts on WhatsApp and email, including “same as last time” repeat orders. It reads back the order, applies any changes, confirms the delivery details and creates the order in your accounting or ERP system for your team to process. Prepaid buyers get a payment link. Accounts on credit terms are invoiced as usual. Part of the B2B supplier workflows.
What happens today
A café group’s buyer messages on Sunday night: “please repeat last week’s order, but 2 more cartons of 12oz cups”. On Monday your customer service person finds last week’s order, retypes it into the order system, guesses which cup they meant, and misses the delivery cut-off. The wrong cups arrive on Wednesday.
The order was simple. It needed to be read back, confirmed and recorded the moment it came in.
The flow that works
- AeroChat matches the buyer to a customer record and checks they can place orders for it.
- For a repeat order, it reads back the last order’s lines and quantities from your system and asks what changes. For a new order, it matches each line to a product code.
- It checks stock for each line and flags anything short, with the lead time.
- It confirms the delivery address, the delivery date against your cut-off, and the PO number if the account uses one.
- It creates the order in your system or your store, notifies your team, and sends the buyer a summary. Prepaid buyers get a payment link first.
The buyer confirms every line before the order is created. That is where most order errors are caught.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When a buyer wants to place an order, follow these steps.
- Check their phone number or email against the contacts on our customer records in our system, and that they are allowed to order for that account. If not, collect the order details and hand over to their sales rep.
- If they ask to repeat an order, find their last order for that account in our system and read back every line with product code and quantity. Ask what to change.
- For new lines, match each one to a product code in our system. If unclear, ask which product they mean.
- Check each line against available stock in our system. If something is short, say how many can go now and the lead time for the rest, and ask whether to send part now or wait.
- Confirm the delivery address on the account and the delivery date. Orders confirmed before 3pm go out the next working day (example). Ask for their PO number if the account requires one.
- Show the full order back to them and ask them to confirm.
- If the account is prepaid, send a payment link for the total and create the order when it is paid. If the account is on credit terms, never send a payment link. Create it straight away.
- Create the order in our system as a draft for the account, with the contact, lines, delivery address, date, PO number and payment status. Notify our order desk to approve it. Send the buyer a summary.
Only use the prices for the account’s price level in our system. Never change a price, give a discount or agree to different payment terms. Hand those requests to their sales rep. Reply in the buyer’s language.
Change the example cut-off time to your own before you paste it.
What to connect
- Your accounting or ERP system. Xero, QuickBooks Online or Oracle NetSuite connect through their APIs. For Xero or QuickBooks Online, approve AeroChat’s access to your company when AeroChat asks. For NetSuite, your administrator creates an access token for AeroChat and pastes it in when AeroChat asks. AeroChat reads customers, price levels, stock and past orders, and creates draft orders there.
- Who can order. Mark which contacts on each customer record can place orders, and the delivery address and payment terms for each account.
- Your online store. If you take trade orders on Shopify or WordPress, both are built in. AeroChat reads order history and creates the order in the store.
- Payments for prepaid accounts. Airwallex is built in: money settles directly into your Airwallex balance. HitPay and Stripe connect through their APIs if you already use them. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
If you run a small operation from a Google Sheet of orders, connect your Google account and approve the access.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What you still decide
- Who at each account can place orders.
- Which accounts are prepaid and which are on credit terms.
- Your delivery cut-off and delivery days.
- Whether part shipments are allowed, and who approves them.
- Whether orders above a set value go to a person before they are created.
The result to expect
Orders that arrive at night or at the weekend are confirmed and waiting in your system before your team starts work, so they make the next delivery run. Repeat orders stop being retyped, and the buyer’s own confirmation catches most mistakes. Your order desk approves orders instead of transcribing them.
Measure it with your own numbers: orders taken in the chat, orders created outside working hours, and order corrections, for a month before and after you start.
Next: order status and delivery and account and invoice questions. See also payment link.
Take your first repeat order
Connect your accounting or ERP system, paste the recipe and ask your own number to repeat last week’s order with one change.
Start your 7-day free trial. No credit card needed.
On Shopify? Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store.