Sales Order Agent·October 21, 2026·4 min read
How to Get Excel, PDF and Email Purchase Orders into Unleashed Without Retyping
Daniel Emaasit
CEO, Logistify AI
TLDR
Unleashed can import sales orders, but only from its own Import Sales Orders template: a CSV file with your order number, customer code, line number, product code and quantity on every line. A customer's Excel purchase order is in their layout, with their part numbers, so someone still rebuilds it first. An AI order entry service such as Logistify reads the Excel file, PDF or email text, matches each line to your Unleashed products and creates the sales order.
The question
A consumer products company that runs Unleashed asked us a question we hear often. Their customers send purchase orders by email in three forms: PDF attachments, Excel spreadsheets, and sometimes just typed into the body of the email. Their team keys every one into Unleashed by hand. They had seen that AI can read PDFs and email text, and wanted to know whether it can read the Excel files too.
The short answer is yes. But it's worth starting with what Unleashed can do on its own, because Unleashed does have an import.
Can Unleashed import sales orders from Excel?
Yes, with a condition. Unleashed has an Import Sales Orders template, and Unleashed says its bulk import templates are CSV files you edit in Excel. Each row is one order line, and five fields are required on every row: Order Number, Customer Code, Line Number, Product Code and Order Quantity. The file has to be in Unleashed's layout, not your customer's.
| Template field | Required | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|
| Order Number | Yes | Your unique order reference, with any prefix you use |
| Customer Code | Yes | The code on the customer's record in Unleashed |
| Line Number | Yes | 1, 2, 3 and so on, for each line of the order |
| Product Code | Yes | Your product code in Unleashed, not the customer's part number |
| Order Quantity | Yes | Units ordered |
| Customer Reference | No | The customer's reference, such as their purchase order number |
| Order Date and Required Date | No | In the date format your Unleashed company settings use |
| Warehouse Code | No | The warehouse the stock ships from |
| Delivery Name and address | No | Delivery Name must match an address name on the customer's record to use a saved address |
| Unit Price | No | Leave it blank and Unleashed applies customer pricing, quantity pricing, the sell price tier or the default price |
Why a customer's Excel order doesn't fit the template
The Excel file your customer sends is their purchase order, not your import file. Before it can be imported, someone has to rebuild it:
- Their layout: a logo, an address block and their purchase order number at the top, with the lines somewhere below. The template needs one row per line and nothing else.
- Their part numbers and descriptions. The template needs your Unleashed Product Code on every line.
- Your references, not theirs: the Customer Code from Unleashed and your own Order Number on every row.
- Every customer's file looks different, so there's no single mapping you can set up once.
Further reading
The Coordination Tax: The $1.6 Trillion Cost of Running Supply Chain on Human Hands
The CEO's thesis on why every manual handoff in your supply chain is a hidden tax — and why AI Agents are the only way to eliminate it.
Read the memoFor one large order, rebuilding the file can still be quicker than typing. For a steady stream of orders from many customers, it takes about as long as keying them, and orders that arrive as PDFs or typed in an email have to be typed into the template before they can be imported.
Excel, PDF and email text: what each takes
| How the order arrives | With Unleashed's import | By hand | With Logistify AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excel or CSV file from the customer | Rebuild it in the template's layout with your codes, then import | Key each line into a new sales order | Reads every sheet in the file (.xlsx or CSV) and creates the sales order |
| PDF purchase order | Type it into the template first | Key each line into a new sales order | Reads the PDF and creates the sales order |
| Order typed in the email body | Type it into the template first | Key each line into a new sales order | Reads the email text and creates the sales order |
How Logistify enters these orders in Unleashed
- 1Customer orders reach Logistify by email: the message itself and its PDF, Word, Excel or CSV attachments.
- 2Logistify reads the order, including every sheet of an Excel file, and works out the customer, the products and the quantities.
- 3It matches each line to your Unleashed products using your catalog and that customer's past orders, so their part numbers and descriptions don't need a column mapping.
- 4An unmatched product, a price that doesn't add up or an unusual quantity holds the order for your team, with the reason.
- 5Orders with no open question are created in Unleashed through its API, with the customer, lines, quantities, prices and delivery address.
Logistify is a managed service: it sets up the product matching and keeps it tuned, and your team handles only the orders it flags. See also AI sales order entry for Unleashed and our post on PDF sales orders in Unleashed.
What Logistify doesn't do
- It reads .xlsx and CSV files. Older .xls files aren't supported yet.
- It creates sales orders in Unleashed, not sales quotes.
- It doesn't read EDI or fax.
When Unleashed's own import is enough
If you control the file, the free import is the right tool: a bulk load of historical orders, orders exported from another system you run, or an order sheet your own sales reps fill in using the template's columns. It stops being enough when the files come from customers, in their own layouts, mixed with PDFs and emails. The same trade-off exists in QuickBooks Desktop, which we cover in QuickBooks Desktop import tools vs AI order entry.
How to try it
- 1Forward a week of real orders, including the Excel files, the PDFs and the orders typed in emails.
- 2Logistify sets up product matching from your Unleashed catalog and each customer's past orders.
- 3Run the 30-day pilot ($1,000, up to 150 completed tasks) while your team keeps keying orders, and compare the sales orders side by side.
- 4Keep going on Core or Business if it works; the pilot fee is credited if you sign an annual plan within 14 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Keying Unleashed orders by hand?
Send us a week of real orders, Excel files, PDFs and email-only orders included. We'll show you the sales orders Logistify would create in Unleashed and which ones it would hold for your team, with the reason.
