Stop typing quotes.
Start sending them.
AI that reads any request, matches every part to your catalog, and drafts an ERP-ready quote or order in under a minute.
Already running at the largest industrial distributors in North America.
45 sec
Average time from request to ERP-ready quote.
90%+
First-time match rate across millions of cross-references.
15 min → 1 min
What a manual quote used to take. What it takes now.
You're paying people to type. Every day. On repeat.
A customer emails your team: "We need 12 of the ½-inch brass fittings, 8 check valves, and a quote on 50 feet of ¾ copper."
Someone opens Outlook. Then the ERP. They look up the customer number. Search for the first product. Enter the quantity. Search for the next. Check inventory. Check pricing. Build the quote. Submit. Flip back to Outlook to reply.
Fifteen minutes. For one email.
If your team handles fifty of those a day, that's hours of skilled labor spent reading requests and typing them into a system. Add the mistakes that come with doing it manually at volume, and the cost gets worse.
I watched it happen at a multi-billion-dollar distributor. They had 100 people who did nothing but enter quotes. Every day. They built an internal AI to fix it and got to a 40% match rate. We replaced the internal build and now run above 90%.
Proton reads incoming requests across any channel, matches the products to your catalog, and builds the quote or order automatically. Your team reviews and approves. The whole thing takes under a minute, with no manual entry required.
Margins in distribution are thin. Labor costs aren't. Order and quote entry automation is the fastest way to close that gap.
Benj Cohen
Founder & CEO, Proton
4th generation distributor @ Benco Dental
What is AI order and quote entry automation?
AI order and quote entry automation reads incoming customer requests — emails, PDFs, voicemails, handwritten lists, spreadsheets — and converts them into ERP-ready orders and quotes without manual typing. The AI matches each item to the distributor's catalog using cross-reference, pricing, and inventory data, then routes a draft to a rep for review.
For most distributors, order entry has stayed manual because the inputs are messy. A customer says "the thing we ordered last March." Another sends a PDF with a competitor's part numbers. A third leaves a voicemail with twelve items. Generic OCR can't handle that. Distribution-specific AI can.
Proton's AI was built for these inputs. It learns your catalog, your customers' nicknames, and your reps' editing patterns over time. The output is a draft quote or order with the right products, right pricing, and right inventory check — ready for a human to send.
Automate every quote and order, start to finish.
Quote in seconds, not minutes
Customers send a part number, a vague description, or "the thing we ordered last March." Proton finds it with pricing, availability, and alternatives ready to go.
Get it right the first time
Manual data entry across systems is where errors happen. Proton generates quotes and orders from unified product, pricing, and inventory data. Reps review and send.
New hire? Doesn’t matter.
Real-time product recommendations, smart pricing, and instant alternatives mean your newest hire supports customers with confidence. No tribal knowledge required.
Turn more quotes into orders
Most quotes die in follow-up limbo. Proton keeps every opportunity visible, reminds reps when to re-engage, and makes it simple to turn "let me think about it" into a PO.
Customer request comes in. Quotes and orders go out.
Customer request comes in
Email, call notes, handwritten list, PDF, spreadsheet, voice memo. Any format, any channel.
Proton parses and matches your SKUs
The AI reads the request and identifies products even when described with competitor part numbers, vague descriptions, or customer-specific nicknames.
Pricing, inventory, alternatives
Customer-specific pricing. Branch-level availability. Substitutes when stock is out. All ready before the rep opens the draft.
Rep reviews. Approves. Sends.
The human stays in control. Proton handles the typing. Order or quote is in your ERP in under a minute.
Get a quote or order ready in just 45 seconds.
Handles any input format your customers send.
Your customers don't send tidy purchase orders. They send what's fastest for them. Proton processes whatever comes in.
Email body text
Natural-language requests with line items mixed into the message.
PDF attachments
Purchase orders, RFQs, takeoff sheets, project specs.
Spreadsheets
Excel, CSV, Google Sheets with hundreds or thousands of line items.
Handwritten notes
Counter sales scans, photos from the field.
Voicemails & calls
Orders dictated over the phone, transcribed and matched.
Web forms & EDI
Structured channels feed the same review queue as everything else.
Competitor part numbers, too.
·
The cross-reference engine maps equivalent products from any manufacturer to your SKUs.
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No templates. No part numbers required.
·
No customer-side training.
Built for inside sales, counter sales, and the field.
Inbound queue, drafted before the rep opens it.
Inbound emails turn into drafted quotes by the time the rep opens them. A 400-line spreadsheet from a contractor gets matched in minutes instead of two days. Quote follow-up runs on autopilot so deals don’t sit in limbo.
Walk-ins, captured as they talk.
A walk-in customer rattles off twelve fittings. The counter rep talks them through the order while Proton transcribes, matches, and builds the cart. The customer leaves with the order entered correctly the first time.
Dictate from the field. Quote on the drive home.
A maintenance manager calls from a plant floor with a parts list. The rep dictates into Proton from their phone. The quote is ready to send by the time they’re back in the truck.
Change orders. Re-quotes. No re-keying.
Order changes, add-ons, and re-quote-with-this-swap requests run through the same workflow. No re-keying.
How Proton compares to other order entry tools.
The only order entry tool that gets smarter as your other systems do.
Most order entry tools live as a standalone box bolted onto your ERP. Proton's order and quote entry sits on a shared data foundation with Proton CRM, Proton PIM, and Proton eCommerce AI. That changes the economics.
When a rep drafts a quote in Proton, the AI sees the customer's full purchase history from CRM, the latest enriched product attributes from PIM, and the customer's browsing behavior from the website. The draft is more accurate, the alternatives smarter, the cross-sell suggestions convert.
Buy Proton order entry first, layer on the rest of the platform without re-implementing. Buy the CRM first, order entry plugs in without integration work. That's the platform advantage.
Customer history, account intel.
Customer history, account intel.
Catalog enrichment, taxonomy.
Recs, browsing signals.
P21, Eclipse, SAP, NetSuite +40.
What changes when distributors automate quote and order entry.
The product is in design-partner phase with a small group of customers. We don't have a public case study tied to order entry yet — here's what we're hearing from those teams.
minutes per quote — manual to drafted-and-approved.
first-time match rate on cross-referenced parts.
takeoff matched in 20 min by one rep. Used to take two days for a team.
first-time match rate vs. existing tools customers had tried before Proton.
reduction in cost per order, moving from manual entry.
Join the design partner program.
For distributors processing high volumes of inbound RFQs and orders. Early pricing, direct roadmap input, white-glove implementation.
Up and running in days. ROI starts immediately.
Most distribution software takes six months and a project team. Order and quote entry doesn't. Proton ships with the matching logic, the cross-reference engine, and the ERP connectors already built — we tune to your catalog and customers, and your reps see drafted quotes on day one.
Connect & sync
Connect Proton to your ERP. Sync product, pricing, customer, and inventory data.
Train on your catalog
Train the AI on your catalog and your top customers’ historical orders. Configure your review workflow.
Pilot with a small team
Pilot with a small group of reps. Tune match thresholds and approval rules based on their feedback.
Roll out & measure
Roll out to the full team. Track time saved, match rate, and quote-to-order conversion in the Proton dashboard.
Proton's implementation team handles every step. No middleware. No outside SI. No "we'll get back to you in six months."
Works with the ERP you already have.
Direct read/write — not a CSV export and a hope. Quotes and orders post to your ERP as if a rep typed them: right customer, right ship-to, right pricing tier. Audit trails stay intact.
Enterprise-grade security and privacy.
Proton protects your data with the highest standards. We're one of the only distributor software platforms with SOC 2 Type II compliance — which is why IT teams trust us with their data, and why we're ready for even the most rigorous security reviews.
Independently audited & certified
Compliant and ready
At rest and in transit
Full audit logs
Order entry is one piece of the platform.
Proton CRM
Turns order-takers into order-makers. AI tells reps who to call, what to pitch, and when.
Proton PIM
The only PIM that enriches your catalog and manages your taxonomy with AI.
Proton eCommerce AI
Personalized website recommendations powered by your full order history.
Questions? We've answered these a lot.
Have more?
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