Order exception
An order exception is a customer order that cannot go into the ERP as it was received, because something on it disagrees with your records or is missing, and a person has to decide what to do before it can be entered.
Common order exceptions
- Price. The price on the order is not the customer’s contract price.
- Unknown item. The part number on the order matches nothing in your catalogue, or has no cross-reference.
- Unit of measure. The customer orders in a unit you do not sell the item in, or the quantity only makes sense in a different unit.
- Ship-to. The delivery address is missing or is not one on the customer’s account.
- Duplicate. The same purchase order number has already been entered.
- Unreadable. A line on an emailed or scanned order cannot be read with confidence.
Why exceptions are the real work
Most orders are routine, and entering them is typing. Exceptions are where the time goes. Someone has to notice the problem, find the contract or the catalogue entry, decide who is right, and sometimes call the customer. If nobody notices, the wrong price or the wrong item ships.
A common way to measure this is the touchless rate: the share of orders that go into the ERP with no person involved. The orders outside that share are the exceptions.
What good exception handling looks like
- You define what counts. The rules for what is held come from how your business checks items, units, prices and accounts.
- The evidence is together. The person deciding sees the customer’s order and the ERP data side by side.
- Nothing is written until it is settled. A held order does not reach the ERP half-entered.
- The decision is recorded. Who approved what, and when, stays with the order.
How Runtara handles it
In a Runtara order workflow, customer, items, quantities and prices are checked against your ERP and contracts. Orders that match go straight in. Only the exceptions you define wait for a person, with the order and ERP data side by side, and nothing is written meanwhile. Once the question is settled the sales order is created, and the run keeps the order, the decision and the ERP response. Human-in-the-loop approval describes how the waiting step works.