Keep your team in context
Every person working a PO sees the same timeline of events, documents, decisions, and next steps. No more chasing updates across email, Slack, spreadsheets, and portals. The PO is the shared workspace.
Cornerstone guide · The operating concept
What is an Intelligent PO?
The operating concept behind EasyOps — for CPG operations leaders evaluating how wholesale work gets organized.
An Intelligent PO is a living workspace for a retailer-issued purchase order. It connects the systems, teams, evidence, and decisions that move a CPG order from receipt through closeout — without replacing the tools you already use.
Direct answer
The PO is the natural unit of wholesale work. The Intelligent PO is where that work lives.
Every wholesale transaction starts with a retailer-issued purchase order. That PO touches EDI, email, your warehouse, your 3PL, the carrier, the distributor’s receiving dock, the invoice, the remittance, and — when something goes wrong — the deduction. Today, the context for that PO is scattered across six or more systems and nobody has the full picture.
The Intelligent PO collects that context into a single workspace. It is not a new system of record. It is the connective layer that organizes work, evidence, and decisions around the PO where they naturally belong.
Six value pillars
What the Intelligent PO does for your team.
Connect the systems you already use
ERP, EDI, WMS, email, retailer portals, accounting software. The Intelligent PO does not replace any of them. It connects the data they produce and organizes it around the purchase order where the work actually happens.
Catch issues early
Compliance violations, missing documents, timing gaps, and shipment discrepancies surface before they become deductions. The system compares what happened against what the retailer expects and flags the difference while there is still time to act.
Know what needs attention
Not every PO needs intervention. The workspace surfaces the orders that are at risk, overdue, or missing a required action, so your team works the exceptions instead of reviewing every order manually.
Build the evidence automatically
BOLs, PODs, ASN confirmations, appointment records, packing lists, carrier events, and retailer communications are collected and organized by PO. When a deduction posts, the evidence package is already assembled.
Automate deduction recovery
When a deduction posts, the system matches it to the PO, classifies the cause, assembles the evidence, and either verifies the charge as contractual or prepares the dispute. Recovery becomes a process, not a project.
What it is not
Clear boundaries make the concept useful.
The Intelligent PO is a connective layer. Understanding what it does not do is as important as understanding what it does.
01It is not an ERP replacement
The Intelligent PO does not manage inventory, run MRP, process accounts payable, or handle general ledger accounting. It connects to your ERP and uses the data your ERP produces, but it does not try to be your ERP. If you use NetSuite, QuickBooks, or Sage, they keep doing what they do.
02It is not a standalone deduction tool
Deduction recovery is one of three operating modes, not the entire product. Tools that start and end at the deduction miss the upstream context — the PO, the shipment, the compliance check — that determines whether a charge is recoverable in the first place. The Intelligent PO starts at the order.
03It is not a general project management tool
There are no Gantt charts, no sprint boards, no arbitrary task lists. The workspace is structured around the purchase order lifecycle: receipt, acknowledgment, fulfillment, shipment, delivery, invoicing, settlement, and closeout. Every feature exists because a PO needs it.
How it connects your stack
Six data sources, one PO workspace.
The Intelligent PO sits between the systems you already use and organizes their data around the purchase order. Nothing is replaced. Everything is connected.
Buyer, broker, 3PL, and carrier communications linked to the PO they reference
EDI / ERP
The 850, 855, 856, 810, and remittance data that define the PO lifecycle
Shipments
BOLs, carrier events, appointment records, and proof of delivery
WMS
Pick confirmations, packing lists, lot-level detail, and warehouse events
Retailer rules
Compliance guides, routing requirements, fee schedules, and policy documents
Deduction evidence
Remittance lines, prefix codes, dispute deadlines, and assembled evidence packages
For the full systems map and integration architecture, see the architecture guide.
Three operating modes
Work it. Prevent it. Recover it.
The Intelligent PO operates in three modes. They are not separate products — they are three lenses on the same PO workspace, each serving a different part of the order lifecycle.
Work it
The shared PO workspace
Operations, sales, logistics, and finance all work from the same living view of each purchase order. Every event, document, decision, and communication is organized by PO, not scattered across inboxes and spreadsheets. This is the daily operating surface.
Prevent it
Upstream compliance checks
Before a shipment leaves the warehouse, the system checks ASN timing, appointment windows, label requirements, and routing rules against the retailer's current expectations. Issues that would become fines or deductions are caught and flagged while there is still time to correct them.
Recover it
Deduction management
When a deduction posts, the system traces it back to the PO, assembles the evidence chain, classifies whether the charge is contractual or disputable, and prepares the dispute package. Recovery is built on the same evidence the workspace has been collecting all along.
Frequently asked
Is the Intelligent PO an ERP?+
No. It connects to your ERP — NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage, or whatever you use — and organizes the data your ERP produces around the purchase order. It does not replace inventory management, general ledger, or accounts payable. It is the connective layer between the systems you already run.
Does it replace K-Solve?+
No. K-Solve is KeHE's supplier-facing deduction and dispute portal, and it remains the only accepted channel for filing KeHE disputes. The Intelligent PO connects to K-Solve data, enriches it with PO-level context and evidence, and prepares dispute packages. But the dispute itself is filed through K-Solve.
What distributors does it support?+
EasyOps currently supports KeHE and UNFI. The PO workspace, compliance checks, and deduction recovery workflows are built around the specific rules, codes, and procedures each distributor uses. Retailer-specific rules are not generic — they are validated against current distributor documentation.
How long does setup take?+
Most brands are operational within two weeks. Setup involves connecting your EDI feed, email, and ERP, then configuring the retailer rules for your active distributors. There is no multi-month implementation or system migration because the Intelligent PO connects to your existing systems rather than replacing them.
Where do deductions fit in?+
Deductions are the downstream consequence of everything that happens upstream: the order, the shipment, the compliance check, the delivery. The Intelligent PO manages deductions as part of the full PO lifecycle, not in isolation. When a deduction posts, the evidence and context are already in the workspace because the system has been tracking the PO from the beginning.
Scope note: This guide explains the Intelligent PO concept. For distributor-specific operating procedures, see the KeHE deduction management guide, the K-Solve field guide, or the KeHE compliance reference.
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