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The intercompany order was sent. What came back?
Short answer
Intercompany order automation links the receiving company's reply to the source order, shows the coordinator the line to clarify and makes sure the corrected version returns to the same order. A retry does not create a second document. At Syntalith the automation costs from €3,000 net, and with 300 orders within the group a month at 15 minutes each it pays back in 1.6 months.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net for the automation of one process, build paid once
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 2–6 weeks
- free prototype on your cases
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
Company groups and AI: statistics 2026
1.6 mo.
payback of a €3,000 automation at 300 orders within the group a month: €2,618 of work today, €788 with checking and the model. Scenario.
55.0%
According to Eurostat (2025), 55.0% of large EU companies with 250 or more employees used AI.
Source: Eurostat, use of artificial intelligence in enterprises (2025) ↗
90%
According to the European Commission (2026), 90% of companies using AI say that people take the decisions, and 2% of decisions are fully automated.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
−87%
According to Anthropic (2025), AI cuts the time of a task on invoices, memos and other documents by an estimated 87%.
Source: Anthropic, Estimating AI productivity gains (2025) ↗
14–56%
According to Anthropic (2025), studies with a control group found smaller time savings, from 14% to 56%.
Source: Anthropic, Estimating AI productivity gains (2025) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Intercompany orders: the receiver asks about one line
Company A sent an approved order to company B. A's system shows „sent”. An employee at B, however, returned one line for clarification, because the product code does not match their catalogue. The coordinator learns about it from a separate email two days later and searches for the order in both systems, because the document numbers on each side are different.
The automation shows the line together with the receiver's comment and the number of the source order. The coordinator asks the person responsible for the catalogue for the right code. The corrected version stays with the same order, and when company B confirms receipt, the coordinator sees which version the reply concerns. Linking numbers, versions and replies rests on rules, and AI only helps summarise a longer message from the receiver.
- How to recognise the source order on both sides
- How to label versions after a correction
- Who at company A answers returned lines
- What a confirmation of receipt means on B's side
What intercompany order automation costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 300 orders within the group × 15 min = 75 h (€2,618)
- With the system, a person checks the output in 30% of the time
- €785
- Model, 1 call per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €3
- Cost of one case
- €8.73 today, €2.63 with the system
- Saving
- €1,830 a month
Payback of €3,000
1.6 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 3,000 input tokens and 400 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
The count covers the work around each case: searching, reading, writing and handing over. What remains is the time to check the result, 30% of today's work in the scenario. Before the quote we measure both times on 20 to 100 cases the team has already handled, in a free test that takes 5 working days.
A bigger cost than the coordinator's minutes is the days an order stands still. Company B does not fulfil the line until it is clarified, and company A thinks it was sent. So in the test we count the time from the line being returned to the corrected version being accepted.
First check the workflow in your current system
Some systems have intercompany transaction inboxes for accepting and rejecting documents. If both companies use them, configuration and deciding who answers returned lines are enough. An automation makes sense when the companies work in different systems and returns and clarifications arrive by email. When the problem is a change of quantity or date by an external supplier, the article on exceptions in purchase orders fits better.
Both companies in one system with an intercompany workflow
configure the workflow
no build
A few orders a week
a list to clarify kept by the coordinator
no build
Different systems, returns by email
an automation linking orders and replies
from €3,000
Where to start
The first scope covers one pair of companies and a chosen type of order. The team names how product and document numbers link up. We build this kind of system as part of our AI automations. For the free process review, a description of one case from the last few weeks and the tools it went through is enough. You do not need to send confidential documents, and you receive a written plan within 2 working days.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: order automation
We run the same count for your group in the free process review.
€3,723
a month for handling 800 orders by hand
Payback: 1 mo.
8 minutes to retype an order into the software and checking in 15% of the old time are our assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. Model cost: reading the order in our system (about €0.0006) plus matching the lines (Claude Sonnet 5.5, about 3,000 + 500 tokens), at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
See the full calculation →
