One timeline for every order, from booking to the payment received.
Order to cash, procure to pay and service request to invoice cross the ERP, the CRM, marketplaces, warehouses, logistics partners, the IRP and your banks. We would link them through documented APIs and events, give each order a single status across all of them, and route every exception to an agent that prepares a fix for a person to approve.
For Indian manufacturers, distributors and service companies that sell, buy and invoice across States, and often to customers in the EU.
A sales order, purchase order or service request is created once in the system that owns it and shared with the others through documented APIs and events. Status events from every system build a single timeline for each order. If a step fails or breaches a tolerance, an agent collects the facts and proposes a fix, which a person approves before the owning system carries it out. GST e-invoices are reported to the IRP, invoices are matched and settled, and process owners review flow and interface health.
Before and after
How daily operations change
Today
With the system
Today
Today: Typed again at every desk
An order booked on the webshop, a marketplace or by a sales executive is keyed into the ERP again, and dispatch and billing details are copied by hand into the warehouse, logistics and accounts systems.
With the system
With the system: Captured once, used everywhere
Orders, dispatches and invoices originate in the one system responsible for them, which announces each as an event; every other system listens for it rather than keying it again.
Today
Today: Status as of last night
Batch interfaces run overnight, so the order desk, planning and accounts each see a different, stale picture of one order. A customer asking where a consignment is gets the promise of a call-back.
With the system
With the system: A single live status
Each order or request has one timeline assembled from the events of every system it touches, and the order desk, planning and accounts read the same facts. Service assistance can answer status queries from them too.
Today
Today: Exceptions settled over email
Stock-outs, rate mismatches, failed deliveries and e-invoices that fail IRP validation are sorted out on email and spreadsheets, and afterwards no one can show who decided what.
With the system
With the system: Exceptions arrive with a suggested fix
For every exception, an agent pulls together the relevant data and suggests how to settle it. On a single exception desk, a team member accepts, changes or turns down that suggestion, and the outcome is logged.
Today
Today: Masters that disagree
One customer, vendor, item or rate sits in several systems with different values, and nobody owns the question of which is right.
With the system
With the system: One owner for each master
Every customer, vendor, item and rate is mastered in one agreed system, and a named person is answerable for it. Duplicates and clashes go to that person instead of being quietly corrected further down the line.
Today
Today: Each change, one more interface
A new sales channel, marketplace or legal entity brings another point-to-point link. GST e-invoicing at home and Peppol for European customers each add a format and a network on top.
With the system
With the system: New links reuse the same contracts
Adding a sales channel, a legal entity or an e-invoicing network means connecting it once to the published APIs and events, not to every system in turn.
Workflow
Step by step
Clean data moves along the main line untouched. Anything that goes off course, whether an order, a dispatch or an invoice, is taken round the exception loop to a person together with the evidence and a suggested fix; once approved, the correction travels back over the integration layer.
Illustrative workflow
7 steps · 1 human checkpoint
Legend
System
AI agent
Person
Human checkpoint
Exception path
Connected operations: illustrative flow with an exception loop
Read the diagram as text
The main line starts when a business event is captured once in its owning system, continues as the event is shared through APIs and assembled into a timeline per order, and reaches invoicing, IRP reporting, matching and settlement. It closes with process owners reviewing flow and correcting the causes of exceptions.
A step that fails, runs late or breaches a tolerance leaves the main line after the timeline step. An agent collects the facts and suggests a fix, and a person accepts, changes or rejects it. The approved action runs in the owning system and returns to the sharing step as a fresh event.
The approval step is the human checkpoint: no entry is posted, no rate or credit limit altered and no promise made to a customer unless a person has said yes.
01
Step 1: Capture the event onceSystem
Whether it comes from the webshop, a marketplace, an EDI message or a sales executive, each sales order, purchase order or service request is created in its owning system, which then emits a business event wrapped in CloudEvents and described in an AsyncAPI contract. Orders and vendor invoices that arrive on paper or as PDFs pass through Document intelligence first.
02
Step 2: Share through APIs and eventsSystem
The integration layer delivers each event to the warehouse, logistics, accounts and CRM systems through their documented OpenAPI interfaces. Every consumer is idempotent, so a repeated message never creates a second dispatch or invoice, and undeliverable messages wait in an error queue until they are replayed.
03
Step 3: Assemble the order timelineSystem
Each system reports milestones such as confirmed, picked, dispatched, delivered, invoiced, IRN received and paid, and these are joined on the order number into one timeline. Rules on milestones and tolerances flag anything that fails, runs late or does not tally: a stock-out, a rate beyond the agreed band, an undelivered consignment, an e-invoice the IRP has not accepted.
04
Step 4: Collect the facts and suggest a fixAI agent
An agent looks up whatever the exception needs, across the systems concerned: the order itself, stock positions, the rate contract, the transporter’s update and the customer’s terms. It then puts forward a remedy, citing the data it relied on and its reasoning, for instance an alternative item, a revised rate, a fresh delivery date or a corrected invoice.
Exception path: Failure or breach of tolerance
05
Step 5: Approve within set limitsPerson
Someone in the order desk, logistics or accounts sees the exception, the evidence and the suggestion on the exception desk, and accepts, changes or rejects it. The approved action is carried out through the API of the owning system, which publishes the change as a fresh event.
Exception path: Failure or breach of tolerance· Returns to step 2
Human checkpoint
Agents never post accounting entries, change rates or credit limits, or commit to a customer without approval. Limits per action type decide who approves, in a maker-checker pattern, and every suggestion and decision is logged.
06
Step 6: Invoice, report, match and settleSystem
The ERP reports each outgoing GST invoice to the IRP and stores the IRN that comes back. Customers in the EU who require it receive a Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 invoice, built on EN 16931 and sent through an access point. Vendor invoices coming in are reconciled with purchase orders and goods receipts, and the bank’s payment confirmation completes the timeline.
07
Step 7: Fix causes, not symptomsPerson
At a regular review, process owners sit with the integration team to go through exceptions grouped by cause, failed interfaces and clashing master data. Each cause is corrected where it lives, whether a master record, a tolerance setting or a field mapping, so the same exception stops returning.
Components
Components we would deliver
01
Event-driven integration layer
APIs and events designed contract-first between ERP, CRM, marketplaces, warehouse, logistics and accounts, specified in OpenAPI and AsyncAPI with CloudEvents envelopes, built on your current integration platform or cloud native.
An agreed system of record and owner for each data object, matching rules for customers, vendors and items, and duplicate and conflict reports for the people responsible.
Joins the events of every system into one timeline for each order or request, checks milestones and tolerances, and gives process owners a view of flow and exceptions.
A queue of exceptions showing the collected facts and the agent’s suggestion, with accept, change and reject actions and approval limits per action type enforced where the action runs.
GST e-invoices reported to the IRP with the IRN stored against each invoice, and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 invoices in UBL for EU customers through an access point, each validated before sending and routed to the exception desk when it fails.
Health monitoring and alerts per interface, runbooks for operations and controlled replay of failed messages, deployed as infrastructure as code in your cloud tenancy, with logs kept as the CERT-In Directions require.
IRP responses with IRN, and Peppol status messages
Bank statements and payment advices
Solution core
Connected operations
Systems it works with
SAP S/4HANA for sales, procurement and financePlatformSAP
Salesforce for sales, service and commercePlatformSalesforce
Odoo for MSME sales, stock, purchase and accountsPlatformOdoo
Marketplaces, webshops and transporter APIs
Warehouse and logistics management systems
GST e-invoicing interface to the IRP, Peppol access point and banks
Item master, product data and the data platform
Controls
Controls built in
Access boundaries
Each integration, and the agent too, has a separate service identity in every system, limited to the API calls it requires. Reading across systems to collect facts is allowed; writing is not, except through a small set of approved actions that the owning system’s own API performs. Direct database access is never granted.
Human review
Approval limits are agreed with the process owner for each type of action, separating what the agent may merely suggest, what one team member can approve, and where a checker must confirm the maker’s approval. Nothing that posts to the books, alters a rate or credit limit, or binds you to a customer goes ahead without a person. Small, reversible steps, such as replaying a failed message, can run unattended where the owner allows.
Auditability
The log ties every event, suggestion, approval, rejection and executed action to its order or request number, and stores the agent’s input data, the model and prompt version and the name of the approver. When an invoice is disputed or a customer raises a grievance, the full sequence can be replayed.
Data protection
Contact details of customers and vendors reach only the systems that need them. The timeline holds business references and statuses rather than complete records, and logs follow the retention you set, with at least one year for logs of personal data processing as rule 6 of the DPDP Rules requires from May 2027. Processing stays in the agreed region.
AI transparency
On the exception desk, anything the agent suggests carries a clear label and sits next to the evidence and the reasoning behind it. The ERP, CRM and other owning systems keep the final word; the timeline only mirrors their status and cannot change it.
Measures
How success would be measured
These measures are agreed in discovery, and the baseline is drawn from your current system and interface logs before any change.
How success would be measured
Metric
Why it matters
How we would measure it
01Order-to-payment cycle
Why it mattersThe figure customers feel first, and the one that reveals where orders sit waiting.
How we would measure itDays from order to delivery and from order to payment, by channel and entity, from timeline events.
02Untouched orders
Why it mattersReveals the portion of the flow that clean masters and agreed rules already carry.
How we would measure itProportion of orders and requests reaching settlement with no manual step or exception, read from the timeline.
03Exceptions by cause and resolution time
Why it mattersShows which causes deserve attention first and whether the desk can keep up with the volume.
How we would measure itException count per reason code, and the time from detection to an executed fix, from exception desk logs.
04E-invoice failures
Why it mattersAn invoice that fails IRP validation or a Peppol check delays payment and usually points to a master or mapping error.
How we would measure itShare of invoices failing at the IRP or rejected over Peppol, by reason, from the responses received.
05Interface failures and recovery
Why it mattersShows whether the integration layer is dependable and whether failures are caught and corrected fast.
How we would measure itMessages that failed on each interface, and how long each took to be replayed successfully, as integration monitoring reports.
06Duplicate and conflicting masters
Why it mattersMost exceptions go back to data that differs from one system to the next.
How we would measure itDuplicates and clashing values still open for each data object and system, as shown in the matching reports.
No targets are set before a baseline exists.
Rollout
Phased rollout
Phase 01
Discovery and process map
A single process and a single exception type, for example order to cash on one sales channel. We chart the systems and interfaces involved, who owns which data, and the way exceptions are handled now.
Exit criteria
Systems, interfaces and data owners charted
Approval limits set for the first exception type
Baseline drawn from current logs
Phase 02
Integration and timeline
Published APIs and events for the systems involved, while the timeline runs beside the current interfaces without altering them.
Exit criteria
Event contracts published with versions
Timeline agrees with the owning systems on sampled orders
Replay and runbooks rehearsed
Phase 03
Exception desk pilot
The agent suggests fixes for the chosen exception type and people approve every suggestion. Each suggestion is set against the action an experienced staff member would have taken.
Exit criteria
Suggestion quality within agreed criteria
Approval limits and approvers fixed per action type
Finance and internal audit sign off the trail
Phase 04
Widen and switch off
More exception types, channels, entities and processes, procure to pay among them, reusing the same contracts. The old point-to-point links are retired one by one.
Exit criteria
Each new flow on the shared contracts and monitoring
Make-to-order and spares orders from the ERP to the warehouse and transporters, with GST e-invoices reported to the IRP and vendor invoices matched to purchase orders.
Procure to pay for ministries, departments and autonomous bodies, with purchase orders, goods receipts and GST invoices matched before an authorised officer releases payment.
Illustrative example
Order to cash at an auto component maker
Situation
An auto component maker supplies vehicle makers in India and customers in the EU from two plants and a warehouse. Orders arrive by EDI and email and are keyed into the ERP again, transporters report delivery problems by phone, and GST e-invoices and export invoices are prepared separately.
System
Orders, stock, dispatches and invoices would flow as events between the EDI gateway, the ERP, the warehouse system and the transporters, with one timeline per order. Invoices would be reported to the IRP, exports included, with their IRNs stored, and EU customers who ask for it would also receive their invoices through a Peppol access point.
Human control
Shortages and failed deliveries would land on one exception desk, where an agent suggests a revised dispatch date or an alternative plant. The order desk would approve each suggestion, and rate changes and credit notes would need a checker in accounts.
What we would measure
Untouched orders per channel and customer group, exceptions by cause and resolution time, and e-invoice failures at the IRP and over Peppol.
India
GST at home, Peppol for European customers
An Indian business above the turnover threshold reports each B2B and export invoice to the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) and records the Invoice Reference Number (IRN) it receives; since 1 April 2025, larger businesses cannot report invoices older than 30 days. Selling to EU customers or through European subsidiaries adds a second channel, and from 1 July 2030 the VAT in the Digital Age package makes structured invoices the norm for B2B supplies between Member States. IRP reporting and Peppol delivery sit behind the same events in our design, so a new mandate needs a connector, not a new process.
Integration logs are retained and clocks synchronised as the CERT-In Directions of 2022 require. Since 12 September 2025 the EU Data Act has governed switching between data processing services, so event contracts and exports stay portable. Exception desk agents are built with the EU AI Act in view, and logged integrations help EU customers evidence NIS2 supply-chain security.
No. The ERP, CRM, webshop and warehouse system go on doing what each does best. We connect them as they are, settle which system masters which data, and lay one timeline across the whole process. Where an ageing order or ERP system stands in the way, Legacy modernisation puts APIs in front of it first.
02Do you swap out our existing integration middleware?
Only if it fails you. Your current integration platform or message broker becomes the base, and we add the missing contracts, monitoring and replay; if you have none, the layer is built cloud native. Our Integrations & APIs page explains that work.
03Can agents act by themselves?
Only inside the limits you set per action type, and only for minor steps that can be undone, such as resending a failed message. Accounting entries, rates, credit limits and promises to customers always go to a person first. Our article on AI agents and human approval goes further.
04How do GST e-invoicing and Peppol fit in?
In India, GST-registered businesses above the turnover threshold report B2B and export invoices to the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP), which returns an Invoice Reference Number (IRN), and since 1 April 2025 larger businesses can no longer report invoices older than 30 days. Within the EU, Member States bring in their own mandates at different times, and from 1 July 2030 the VAT in the Digital Age package makes structured invoices the norm for B2B supplies between Member States. In our design, an e-invoice is simply another event: created in the ERP, reported or delivered through the proper channel, and sent to the exception desk if it is refused. Read GST e-invoicing and Peppol for the detail.
05How do you stop a new web of point-to-point links from forming?
Every system talks to a single integration layer rather than to its neighbours. Event and API contracts are versioned, a message received twice has no second effect, anything that fails can be replayed, and each flow has a named person responsible. Adding a channel means subscribing to events that already exist, not wiring it to each system in turn.
06What would a first scope cover?
A single process with a single exception type, say order to cash on one sales channel, starting with stock-outs. Events, timeline and approvals are proven there before anything else is added. Our delivery model explains the phases.
Show us your order and invoice flows
Pick a process and tell us where it runs, in India and in Europe. Together we chart its systems, interfaces and exceptions, and we then propose a first release that serves all your entities.