POClerk for specialty food
Wholesale food orders, counted correctly
Food wholesale is an arithmetic problem as much as a matching one. Buyers order in cases, outers, trays and units — sometimes several of those in one purchase order — and the difference between 6 and 72 is one misread word.
Start free — 10 orders See it work →
An order like this one
This is the kind of message that arrives in your sales inbox, and the kind somebody currently retypes. Forward it — or have the buyer send it straight to your POClerk address — and it comes back entered line by line against your catalog, with anything uncertain held for you.
Your PO inboxyourshop@in.poclerk.comA spreadsheet — pack sizes in one column, quantities in another.
Order sheet attached for Friday. Same delivery address. PO GG-8842.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Item | Pack | Qty | Unit |
| 2 | Sea Salt Crackers 130g | 24 / case | 4 | case |
| 3 | Chilli Jam 220g | 12 / outer | 2 | outer |
| 4 | Wildflower Honey 500g | — | 18 | unit |
| 5 | Mixed Preserves — as last time | 24 / case | 1 | case |
What makes specialty food orders hard
Cases, outers, trays and units in one order
You tell POClerk what your pack words mean — a case is 24, an outer is 12 — and it applies them line by line, so "4 cases" becomes 96 units on the draft order rather than 4. A unit you have set no rule for is held, never counted as singles.
The arithmetic is checked, not assumed
Where the purchase order prints a line total, quantity × unit price is checked against it. When they disagree, POClerk works out which quantity the total implies and flags the line — catching the miscounts that are otherwise found at the loading bay.
"As last time" and other things only you know
Some lines genuinely cannot be resolved from the document alone. Those are held with the reason rather than approximated, and you settle them before the order is drafted. When a buyer orders by their own item code, teaching POClerk that code once is enough.
Prices that differ from your catalog
When a purchase order carries a price more than 2% away from your catalog price, the difference is noted on the draft order — so the decision to honour it or correct it is yours, made before the order goes out. A line matched by its item code or your listing's exact name is still entered; one matched from partial wording is held, since there a price that doesn't fit can mean the wrong item.
The same three stops, whatever you sell
Email body, PDF, spreadsheet, CSV, scan or photo — or dragged into the app.
Matched to your catalog, quantities converted by your pack rules, prices compared with your catalog.
Sure lines are in; uncertain ones wait with a reason. Once they are settled, one click creates the Shopify draft order.
Questions from specialty food sellers
Where do the pack sizes come from?
You set them once in the app: what a case, an outer or a tray holds in your store. They apply to every purchase order from then on, and a line whose unit matches no rule you have set is held rather than assumed to be single units.
Do you handle quantities by weight?
Only as far as your own rules go. A line ordered by weight — kilos, pounds — is held for you to check unless you have set a rule for that unit, because POClerk never assumes a kilo is one unit. Items priced at the point of packing are yours to check on the draft order.
How accurate is it, really?
On our published benchmark — four real store catalogs and purchase orders in thirteen formats, from clean PDFs to phone photos — POClerk entered over 99% of lines correctly, and everything it could not be sure of was held and explained rather than guessed. The full method, the per-catalog results and a head-to-head against two established purchase-order apps are on the benchmark page.
That figure describes our test corpus, not a promise about your catalog — which is what the free first 10 orders are for.
Do my customers have to change anything?
No — that is the point. They keep sending the same emails, PDFs and spreadsheets they always have. You either forward those to your POClerk address or give buyers the address so they send there directly.
Try it on your own purchase orders.
First 10 free, on your real catalog, with no card. Check every line against the original before you pay anything.
Also for: Coffee & beverage · Apparel · Parts