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WHATSAPP ORDERING · PART OF SALES ORDER AUTOMATION

Orders straight out of WhatsApp, into your ERP.

Your customers already order on WhatsApp. Weeva reads the messages and photos, builds the order, handles the changes, catches the duplicates and merges the stragglers. Your order desk sees a clean order, not a chat.

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Illustrative example: A WhatsApp conversation with Karoo Table Supply: a chef orders produce at night, sends a photo of the order book, then changes six crates of tomatoes to eight, and the single order updates.

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How does WhatsApp ordering work?

Customers send their orders to a dedicated Weeva WhatsApp number, as text, photos of an order book or forwarded messages. Weeva reads each message, builds the order against your catalogue, applies the customer's units and prices, updates the order when a follow-up message changes it, flags a message that repeats an order already captured, and merges messages from the same customer inside your ordering window into one order. The result is posted to your ERP like any other order.

When the order desk opens at 5am and the truck leaves at 7.

  • Fresh produce

    Orders come in kilos, crates and shorthand, from the same people every day, before dawn. Weeva learns the shorthand and prices from the day's list.

    Fresh produce

  • Food and beverage

    Cases and singles, promotions and per-customer pricing, sent by whoever is on shift. Weeva resolves the units and applies the right list.

    Food and beverage

  • Restaurants and hospitality supply

    Chefs order at 11pm for the morning, then change it at 6am. Weeva keeps one order, with the history.

    Restaurants and hospitality supply

What does Weeva do with a WhatsApp order?

From a chat to a clean order.

See how it works

  1. Reads the message and the photo of the order book.

    A typed list, a photo of a handwritten page, or both. Multi-page photos are held together as one job.

    Karoo Table SupplyChef Anele
    1. Customer, 22:47: Evening. For tomorrow please: 6 crates tom, 2 box cucumber, 4 iceberg
    2. Customer, 22:49: Photo of order book page

    Order KTS-PO-00218

    • 6Tomatoes, Jam, 6kg crate
    • 2Cucumbers, box of 12
    • 4Lettuce, Iceberg, 12 head boxRemembered

  2. Smart amendments.

    "Make that 8 crates not 6" updates the line, keeps the history and shows the change in the audit log. No second order.

    Karoo Table SupplyChef Anele
    1. Customer, 05:58: Make that 8 crates tom not 6
    2. Weeva, 05:58: Updated: Tomatoes, Jam, 6kg crate, 6 to 8.

    Order KTS-PO-00218

    • 8, changed from 6Tomatoes, Jam, 6kg crateEdited · 05:58

  3. Duplicate detection.

    The same order sent twice, or forwarded by a second person, is flagged and not captured twice.

    Duplicate order
    Umhlanga Fresh ProduceThandeka
    1. Customer, 05:12: Morning. 6 crates tom, 3 box cuc, 10kg carrots, the usual lettuce
    2. Forwarded by Sipho, 05:33: Morning. 6 crates tom, 3 box cuc, 10kg carrots, the usual lettuce
      Possible duplicate · not captured

    Order UFP-9931

    • 6Tomatoes, Jam, 6kg crate
    • 3Cucumbers, box of 12

  4. Order merging.

    Two messages from the same customer inside the ordering window become one order. A late addition is merged into the same order before cut-off.

    Order merging
    Umhlanga Fresh ProduceThandeka
    1. Customer, 05:12: Morning. 6 crates tom, 3 box cuc, 10kg carrots, the usual lettuce
    2. Customer, 05:40: and 2 punnets strawberries

    Order UFP-9931

    • 2Strawberries, 250g punnet
    Merged before 06:00 cut-off

The customer gets a confirmation. The order desk gets a clean record.

Illustrative example: A confirmation message sent back to the customer listing the parsed order lines, beside the order as the order desk sees it, with one change and one late addition marked.

  • Confirmation message back to the customer with the parsed lines, if you switch it on

  • Order status visible to your team

  • Customers message a dedicated Weeva number; nothing installs on their phone

  • Every message kept against the order

What happens when a customer photographs several pages?

Page by page, one order.

Customers often photograph an order book one page at a time and send the photos a few seconds apart. Weeva holds images from the same customer together while more keep arriving, so a three-page order becomes one order with every line.

How does Weeva understand produce shorthand?

Your customers' shorthand, matched to your catalogue.

"2 x tom" from one chef and "2 crates tomatoes" from another resolve to the same SKU. The first time a person confirms a customer's shorthand, Weeva remembers it for that customer. Crates, boxes, kilos, punnets and bunches are calibrated to the pack your catalogue sells.

  • Crate
  • Box
  • Kilogram
  • Punnet
  • Bunch
Illustrative example: The message line 2 x tom resolving to catalogue SKU TOM-JAM-6KG, Tomatoes, Jam, 6kg crate, marked as learned from this customer.

Straight into the system you already run.

An order built from a WhatsApp conversation posts to your ERP, accounting or inventory system by API, the same way as an order that arrived by email. No re-typing from the chat.

See all integrations

WhatsApp orders use the same connectors as Sales Order Automation.

Judge it on your own WhatsApp orders before you switch.

For the first weeks Weeva runs beside your team. Nothing posts to your ERP until you approve it, and you see these four measures every week.

What you measure

Orders built without re-typing.
The share of WhatsApp orders that reach your ERP with no correction.
Changes applied.
Amendments and late additions that land on the right order.
Duplicates caught.
The same order sent twice, held before it is captured twice.
Your call.
You switch over customer by customer, when the numbers satisfy you.

What stays the same

  • Your ERP stays your system of record.
  • Your customers keep ordering on WhatsApp, with nothing to install.
  • Your order desk keeps the final say on every uncertain line.
  • Your data stays in your own encrypted tenant.

Three steps, and nothing switches over until you say so.

Most cloud systems are configured in the first week; adapter builds are scoped in discovery.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    Thirty minutes on how orders arrive, three sample documents, and a look at your catalogue and ERP.

  2. 02

    Parallel run

    Weeva processes real orders beside your team. Nothing posts until you approve it.

  3. 03

    Switch over

    Customer by customer, when the numbers on your own orders satisfy you.

What WhatsApp order desks ask.

Do my customers need to install anything?

No. They message a WhatsApp number as they do today. The only change is the number: a dedicated Weeva WhatsApp number that customers save once. After that they carry on ordering the way they already do, with a typed list, a photo of the order book or a forwarded message.

Can it read a photo of a handwritten order?

Yes. Photos of order books and handwritten notes are read the same way as PDFs. Several photos sent in a row are held together as one job, so a multi-page order becomes one order. Anything Weeva is unsure of is flagged for a person to confirm before the order is captured.

How does it know two messages are the same order?

It compares the customer, the lines and the timing against orders already captured, and flags a likely repeat for a quick confirmation. That catches the order sent twice by mistake and the one forwarded by a second person at the same customer. Nothing is dismissed or captured twice without a person deciding.

What if a customer changes an order after sending it?

The follow-up message updates the existing order and the change is recorded. Your team sees one order with its history. The line shows the old and new quantity, the message that changed it and the time, so nobody has to scroll back through the chat to work out what the customer meant.

Is the WhatsApp Business API required?

Weeva provides the number and the connection. You do not need your own API account. There is no WhatsApp integration project on your side: your customers message the dedicated number, and the orders land in the same inbox as your email and uploaded orders.

Can it price the order from today's list?

Yes. Price lists can be updated daily, and orders without prices are priced from the customer's current list. That suits produce and other lines where prices move every day. A price the customer did type that differs from the list is flagged for review, never overwritten.

Does it work for email orders too?

Yes. WhatsApp Ordering is one channel of Sales Order Automation, alongside email, upload and watched folders. Every channel feeds the same inbox, the same catalogue matching and the same ERP push, so a customer who orders by WhatsApp one day and by email the next is handled the same way.

See Weeva on your own WhatsApp orders.

Send us three real WhatsApp orders and we'll show you the result in the demo.

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