February 15, 2025 · 7 min read · By Zentriq Team
Manual data entry is the silent productivity killer in every ERP system. Whether you're running Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, SAP, or Oracle, your team is spending hours each week typing data that already exists somewhere else — on a supplier website, in an invoice PDF, or in a spreadsheet from a colleague.
The cost is staggering. Industry studies estimate that manual data entry consumes 20-30% of a finance or procurement team's working hours. And beyond the time cost, there's the error rate: humans make mistakes on roughly 1% of keystrokes, which compounds across thousands of fields per week into costly order errors, payment mismatches, and audit issues.
Here are five practical ways to reduce — or eliminate — manual data entry in your ERP, with a focus on Business Central.
Every time a procurement officer shops on a supplier website, they build a cart full of products — complete with names, SKUs, quantities, and prices. Then they switch to Business Central and type it all in again. This double-entry is the single biggest source of manual data entry in procurement.
The fix: Use AI-powered cart capture to transfer cart data directly into your ERP. Tools like Zentriq PunchOut use a browser extension that reads any supplier website's cart page with AI and creates Requisition Worksheet lines in Business Central automatically. No copy-pasting, no re-typing, no per-supplier integration.
Time saved: 10-30 minutes per purchase order, depending on the number of line items.
Invoices, delivery notes, order confirmations — your inbox is full of documents that contain structured data trapped in unstructured formats (PDFs, scanned images, emails). Manually extracting this data into your ERP is tedious and error-prone.
The fix: AI document processing (sometimes called intelligent OCR) reads documents the way a human would — understanding context, not just pixels. Modern AI OCR extracts vendor names, line items, amounts, tax breakdowns, payment terms, and due dates from any invoice layout, regardless of language or format.
Unlike template-based OCR systems that break when a supplier changes their invoice design, AI-based extraction adapts automatically. Zentriq Document Capture, for example, processes invoices in seconds and creates Purchase Invoice drafts directly in Business Central.
Time saved: 5-15 minutes per invoice, plus significant reduction in posting errors.
If your team is manually transferring data between systems — copying CRM records into the ERP, retyping warehouse counts, or exporting spreadsheets from one app to import into another — you're doing work that APIs were designed to handle.
The fix: Connect your systems using direct API integrations or middleware platforms like Power Automate, Make, or Zapier. Business Central has a robust set of REST APIs that allow other systems to read and write data — vendors, items, purchase orders, invoices, and more.
Start with the highest-volume data flows. If you're transferring 50+ records per week between two systems, that's a strong candidate for API automation.
Time saved: Varies widely, but automating a single high-volume data flow typically saves 2-5 hours per week.
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most overlooked. If your team types the same values into the same fields repeatedly — the same payment terms for a recurring vendor, the same GL account for a category of purchases, the same dimension codes — you can eliminate that repetition with templates and defaults.
The fix: In Business Central, use Configuration Templates, Vendor Templates, and Item Templates to pre-fill standard values. Set default dimensions on vendors and items. Use Requisition Worksheet filters and saved views to minimize navigation time. Every field you pre-fill is a field your team never has to type.
Time saved: 1-3 minutes per record, which adds up to hours per week for high-volume processes.
A surprising amount of “data entry” time is actually spent on data retrieval — navigating to the right page, applying filters, scanning results, then copying information from one record to another. An AI assistant can shortcut this entire process.
The fix: Use a conversational AI assistant embedded in your ERP. Ask it questions like “What's the last price we paid for item 1896-S?” or “Show me all open purchase orders for vendor 10000” and get instant answers without navigating anywhere. Some AI assistants can also create records from natural-language instructions — “Create a purchase order for 100 units of item 2000 from vendor 30000” — which eliminates the form-filling entirely.
Time saved: 1-2 minutes per lookup, and significantly more for AI-assisted record creation.
You don't have to implement all five at once. Start by identifying where your team spends the most time on manual data entry. For most procurement and finance teams, the top two are cart-to-ERP entry and invoice processing — and those are exactly where AI delivers the fastest ROI.
The goal isn't to eliminate humans from the process — it's to eliminate the parts of the process that don't need a human. Data entry is mechanical work. Decision-making, vendor relationships, and strategic sourcing are where your team adds real value.
Zentriq covers tips #1, #2, and #5 out of the box for Business Central — AI cart capture, AI document processing, and an AI assistant, all integrated directly into BC. No complex setup, no per-supplier integration, and a free plan to get started.
See pricing and start free or book a demo to see how much time your team can reclaim.