From order to packing list. A made-up order, read by a system and approved by a person.
An order arrives in an email written in a hurry, and someone in the office turns it into a packing list, an invoice and a proof of origin. This page shows the same work done by a system, with a person approving it before it goes out.
The example is constructed. The order, the company and the importer are made up, the same ones as in the filled-in sample packing list: twelve cartons of olive oil going to Switzerland. No client data appears on this page.
The numbers were measured on the bench. On 4 September 2026, on 30 test PDF documents (orders, invoices, transport documents, specification sheets) in five languages: 30 out of 30 processed, 98.7% of extracted fields correct, 6.264 seconds per document.
Nothing goes out on its own. The system prepares and flags; the packing list goes out once a person has read and approved it.
1. The order, as it really arrives
It does not arrive in a table: it arrives in an email, with the quantities in the text and one detail changed since last time. It is the most common format and the most time-consuming, because every line has to be read, interpreted and copied into three different documents.
Good morning, as discussed on the phone we confirm the oil order: eight cartons of six 0.75 bottles and four cartons of twelve 0.25 bottles. Delivery by the 20th. Invoice as last time but addressed to the new Lugano office, I will send you the address tomorrow. Thanks, the purchasing office of Importatore Esempio SA
2. The data the system pulls out
The system reads the email and puts it into a table: customer, items, cartons, delivery date. Anything that is not in the email, it does not make up: it marks it as missing. The customs code, origin and weights are not in the email, so it takes them from the specification sheet of each product, which is the source.
| Field | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Customer | From the email: Importatore Esempio SA |
| Items and cartons | From the email: 8 cartons of 6 bottles of 0.75 l, 4 cartons of 12 bottles of 0.25 l |
| Delivery | From the email: by the 20th |
| HS code, origin, weights per carton | From each product’s specification sheet: 1509 20, Italy, 4.122 and 7.494 kg; 2.748 and 6.124 kg |
| Address of the new office | Missing: the email says it will arrive tomorrow |
3. The packing list, with totals
Twelve cartons numbered one by one, 43.968 kg net and 84.448 kg gross. The weights are added up from the specification sheet, not counted again in the warehouse, and the goods description is the same one that will go on the invoice and the proof of origin. The generator on the packing list page does the same calculation with your lines.
4. The error the check flags
The invoice number is missing, and the new office does not have an address yet. The first is one of the four details that make a packing list a document; the second would change the header of all three sheets. The system does not guess them: it stops the draft and tells the person handling the order what is missing and why.
The four details are set by the Turin Chamber of Commerce, which says this about the packing list:
Issued by the seller, the packing list must show the number of the commercial invoice it relates to, the number and type of packages, a description of the goods in each package, and the details of any container the goods are loaded into.
5. A person approves
The packing list goes out once a person has read it and said yes. It is written into Itria’s principles, under Ethics: the system prepares and flags, and no document goes out without someone approving it. On a packing list that signature matters, because the signatory is declaring what is inside the cartons.
What was measured, and on what
Thirty PDF documents of four types, in five languages, read and put into a table on 4 September 2026 on a test system. The measurements carry the label measured on the bench: documents we wrote ourselves, with the expected values fixed before the test, not a client’s documents.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Documents processed without error | 30 out of 30 |
| Document type recognised | 30 out of 30 |
| Fields extracted correctly | 98.7%, i.e. 234 out of 237 |
| Time per document, median | 6.264 seconds |
| The deliberately unreadable document | Set aside, no fields made up |
The test can be run again on a video call with your PDFs. The three wrong fields out of 237 are listed one by one in the source notes, along with the reason.
Where it helps, and where it doesn’t
It helps when there are many orders and the documents are redone for every order: weekly shipments, many items, mixed batches. It is the area Itria calls Time Recovery, and the piece that reads the documents is described in automatic document entry. With two shipments a year, a careful person and the free template are enough.
Fifteen minutes on a video call, with one of your test orders or one we make up. First we look at how much time it costs you today, then whether a system would make sense. I take on a few clients at a time, because I build and look after the systems myself. Message me on WhatsApp, the first line is already written, or use the contact page.
Can the system also read orders in PDF or in other languages?
Yes. The bench test on 4 September 2026 included orders, invoices, transport documents and specification sheets in PDF, in five languages: 30 out of 30 documents processed and 98.7% of fields correct.
An unreadable PDF, deliberately added to the batch, was classified as unreadable without any field being made up.
What happens if a piece of data is missing from the order?
The system does not make it up: it marks the field as missing, stops the draft and alerts the person handling the order.
Data held elsewhere, such as the customs code, origin and weight per carton, comes from the product specification sheet, which is the source.
Does the packing list go out on its own?
No. The system prepares and flags; the packing list only goes out after a person has read and approved it.
It is a rule written into Itria’s principles, and on a packing list it matters, because the signatory is declaring what is in the cartons.
Do the test numbers come from a client?
No. They were measured on the bench: 30 PDF documents we wrote ourselves, with the expected values fixed before the test, on 4 September 2026.
The test can be run again on a video call with your documents.
Do you need to change your management software to use it?
No. The system works alongside the tools you already use: it reads documents where they arrive and writes the data where it is needed.
We start from how much the manual work costs today, and only then decide whether a system makes sense.
Notes on sources
- Constructed example. The order, Azienda Agricola Esempio and Importatore Esempio SA are made up; the weights are those of the sample packing list, calculated on the indicative density of olive oil (0.916 kg per litre) and on the glass, cap and carton weights given on that page.
- Bench measurements, 4 September 2026. 30 test PDFs written by Itria (9 invoices, 8 transport documents, 7 specification sheets, 5 orders and confirmations, 1 deliberately unreadable), in five languages, with the expected values fixed before the test. The three wrong fields out of 237: two zero VAT amounts left blank instead of writing 0, and a customer country that was not written on the document.
- Turin Chamber of Commerce, documents in commercial transactions abroad: the four details of the packing list, quoted word for word.
- The clock runs from receipt of the document to the completed table. Uploading to a shared folder and writing into the company’s own sheets were not measured.
Documents are redone for every order. The data they come from isn’t.
If you copy the packing list, the invoice and the proof of origin by hand from the same email, that is the work a system would take away. At Itria we build tailored systems for SMEs that export, with a person approving before anything goes out. Drop us a line: in fifteen minutes we can see whether it would make sense for your orders.