Straight answers, no hand-waving.

We actually do. AS/400, IBM iSeries, and IBM i are the same platform under different names, and they run DB2 for i underneath. Most automation vendors quietly mean "REST API only" when they say "any ERP" — so the answer for green-screen systems is no. We built Ordermatic to write clean orders into IBM i environments directly, which is exactly why distributors on these systems come to us in the first place.

We don't depend on a modern REST API existing, because on IBM i it usually doesn't. We connect through the interfaces these systems already expose — DB2 for i over secure ODBC/JDBC (the JTOpen/jt400 path), IBM i Access, data queues, journal-based change capture, and where appropriate the same order-entry programs your team uses. We validate against your live catalog, customer records, and pricing, then write the order in. No rip-and-replace, no waiting on IT to build an API first.

No — and that's the whole point. Migrating off AS/400 or Infor M3/M4 is a multi-year, seven-figure project, and it's not why you have an order-entry problem. Ordermatic sits in front of your ERP as an automation layer. Your system keeps running exactly as it does today; we just stop the manual rekeying that happens before an order reaches it.

Yes. Decades-old IBM i shops are rarely "vanilla" — they're full of custom RPG programs, modified order screens, and business rules nobody wrote down. We map to how your environment actually behaves, including the validations and pricing logic your team applies by habit, rather than assuming a clean off-the-shelf install. The messier the system, the more time we save you.

Yes. Infor M3/M4 is in the same family of legacy ERPs we deliberately support — the ones most AI order-entry tools skip because they're harder to integrate with than a cloud-native system. If you can show us how orders get entered today, we can automate the front of that process.

Accurate enough that the bottleneck stops being typing and starts being judgment. Modern document AI reads handwriting, faxes, and scanned PDFs far better than the OCR you remember — but we don't stop at "the AI read it." Every extracted line is validated against your real ERP data: part numbers, customer accounts, units of measure, and pricing. The number that matters is your accuracy on your own order mix, which you'll see during a pilot before you commit a dollar.

It flags it for a human instead of guessing. That's the core of how we're built differently — Ordermatic is confident when it should be and honest when it shouldn't be. Clean, unambiguous orders flow straight through; anything uncertain (a smudged quantity, an unfamiliar SKU, a price that doesn't match the contract) is routed to your team for a quick review before it ever posts. You stay in control of the exceptions, not buried in the routine.

Right. Validation happens before anything is written, not after. If a line doesn't reconcile against your catalog, customer, or pricing rules, it doesn't auto-post — it becomes an exception. That's the opposite of manual keying, where a transposed part number or a mis-typed quantity sails straight through unnoticed until a customer calls.

No. It replaces the rekeying, not the people. Your team stops typing every line by hand and starts handling the judgment calls and customer relationships that actually need a human. Most teams use the hours they get back to absorb more volume without hiring, rather than to cut staff.

Old OCR reads characters; RPA blindly clicks through screens. Both break the moment an order doesn't match a rigid template, and neither understands what it's looking at. Ordermatic reads the order the way a person would, then checks every detail against your live ERP data — so it handles the variety of real-world POs instead of only the perfectly formatted ones.

Yes. We're used to environments that were never designed to talk to the cloud. Connectivity to an on-premise IBM i system runs through secure, access-controlled channels (encrypted ODBC/JDBC and, where preferred, an on-premise gateway or agent) rather than exposing your ERP to the open internet. We work within your network and security model — we don't ask you to loosen it.

We touch what's needed to turn an inbound order into a validated ERP entry: the order document itself, plus the catalog, customer, and pricing data we check it against. Everything moves over encrypted connections, access is scoped to order entry, and we're happy to walk your IT and security teams through exactly what's read, what's written, and what's retained before anything goes live.

Only on terms your team sets. Writes are scoped to order entry, run through credentials and permissions you control, and can post into a staging or review step first so nothing hits production unattended during rollout. We run alongside your existing process until your team trusts what's going in.

We design for it. Every order Ordermatic processes leaves a traceable record — what came in, what was extracted, what was validated, what a human reviewed, and what posted. That audit trail is usually cleaner than a manual process, where the only record is whatever a CSR happened to type. Bring your specific requirements to a scoping call and we'll map them concretely.

Weeks, not the months or years a migration takes — even on AS/400. Because we add a layer in front of your ERP instead of changing it, there's no schema overhaul, no data migration, and no risky cutover weekend. Exact timing depends on how many order formats and customer quirks we map, but you'll have a concrete plan after the first scoping conversation, not a vague "it depends."

Very little. Your customers keep sending orders the way they always have — email, PDF, fax, handwritten notes, phone-to-text. Your ERP stays as-is. The main thing we need from you is access to how orders are entered today and a sample of your real order mix so we can map and validate against it.

We run in parallel. Ordermatic processes orders alongside your manual process until accuracy on your own order mix is proven, so there's never a moment where automation is the only thing standing between a customer and a correct order. You flip the switch when the numbers earn your trust — not on our timeline.

Pricing scales with order volume and the complexity of your environment, not a per-seat license — so it lines up with the work we actually take off your team. The fastest way to a real number is a short scoping call where we look at your order flow and ERP. Most distributors weigh it against the hours and avoidable errors they're absorbing today, and the math gets obvious quickly.

Book a demo. We'll walk through your current order flow, confirm we support your ERP — including the legacy systems most vendors won't — and show you where automation removes friction. No migration, no commitment to see it work on your own orders first.