Conexiom Alternatives for Epicor Order Automation, Compared on Approval Workflows

The main Conexiom alternatives for Epicor order automation fall into four categories: Epicor's own Sales Order Automation in its ECM family, EDI providers such as SPS Commerce and TrueCommerce for trading partners who can send EDI, dedicated AI order-entry tools such as Ordermatic, OrderDrafter and WizCommerce, and agent-based tools such as Fluent that work across several Epicor Kinetic screens. For Epicor Kinetic teams, start with Fluent: it covers ten Kinetic screens from one platform, needs no per-customer format mapping, and runs every order through approval workflows before anything is written to Epicor, with an approval agent telling each approver what to check.

Why Epicor teams look beyond Conexiom

Conexiom turns the purchase orders customers email in, as PDFs, spreadsheets or email bodies, into sales orders in the ERP, and it supports a range of ERPs, Epicor among them.

Teams running Epicor Kinetic usually start comparing options for one of these reasons:

• Scope. They want AP invoices, packing slips or remittances handled by the same tool as customer purchase orders, and sales order automation is only part of the list.
• Epicor fit. They want a product built around Epicor Kinetic specifically, including its own customer part numbers, units and pricing.
• Onboarding new customers. They want to understand what happens when a new customer sends an order format for the first time, and who has to act on it. Where the vendor maps each format, every new customer waits in that queue.
• Control of behavior. They want their own team to be able to change how orders are handled without a change request to a vendor.
• Approvals. They want each order signed off by the right people before anything reaches Epicor, with a record of who approved what.
• Footprint in Epicor. Their Epicor administrator wants to know exactly what gets installed, what access is granted, and how it is scoped.
• Commercial fit. Pricing models differ across the category, and a model that suits one order volume may not suit another.

Put the same questions to every option below, Conexiom included. The approval question separates them fastest.

Category 1: Epicor Sales Order Automation (ECM)

Epicor offers its own sales order automation as part of its ECM product family, the content management line that also covers AP automation. Incoming purchase orders are captured and turned into sales orders in Epicor.

The appeal is a single vendor. Support, licensing and the roadmap all sit with Epicor, and teams already running Epicor ECM for AP or document management can extend what they have. ECM and Fluent also work together: Fluent's ECM document agent builds an agent from any ECM document type you already run, reads the incoming document in place of IDC, fills that type's custom fields and line rows, and files it in ECM with the index values populated, so ECM keeps the archive and its own workflows.

Category 2: EDI providers (SPS Commerce, TrueCommerce)

Where a trading partner sends clean EDI, EDI is the right answer: it is deterministic, with nothing to infer. Providers such as SPS Commerce and TrueCommerce run trading-partner networks, maintain the maps, and deliver structured orders into Epicor. Fluent does not try to replace them.

EDI only covers the partners who will do it. Everyone else sends the long tail: PDF and scanned purchase orders, email bodies, spreadsheets exported from their own systems, portal exports, their own part numbers, abbreviations and odd units. For many manufacturers and distributors that long tail is the majority of orders. Fluent is built for the long tail: the AI reads each order and resolves it against live Epicor data, then deterministic checks and approval workflows run before anything reaches Epicor. Fluent also reads EDI and XML documents it is sent, and you can keep your EDI customers out of the agent so nothing is processed twice.

Category 3: Dedicated AI order-entry tools (Ordermatic, OrderDrafter, WizCommerce)

A newer group of tools focuses on the same problem Conexiom does: reading unstructured purchase orders and creating sales orders. Ordermatic and OrderDrafter position themselves as AI order-entry tools that read emailed and PDF orders. WizCommerce positions itself more broadly, as a B2B sales and ordering platform for wholesalers and distributors with AI order processing included.

These tools are focused on the order desk. The questions to ask are the same as for any order tool: how deep the Epicor integration goes (customer part numbers, units, pricing, ship-to addresses), what the review step looks like, who can sign off and by what rule, and what happens when the tool is unsure.

Lowki belongs in this group too. Its product, Lexi, is built only for Epicor Kinetic: it reads orders from a Microsoft Exchange Online mailbox and creates each sales order in Kinetic on hold, for a person to check and release. Its AP automation is in early access as of October 2026. See Fluent vs Lowki and Lowki alternatives.

Category 4: Agent-based tools for Epicor Kinetic (Fluent)

Agent-based tools take a document, resolve it against live ERP data, and draft the transaction for a person to approve. Fluent is one of these, built for Epicor Kinetic by Technology Coast Partners (TCP), an Epicor Platinum Partner.

For sales orders, Fluent reads PDFs, scans, photos, spreadsheets, email bodies, XML and EDI that are forwarded or emailed to the agent. It resolves the customer, parts (including the customer's own part numbers) and units against live Epicor data, uses the customer's own currency and terms, and flags any existing order already carrying the same customer PO number before it drafts. Any part or unit it cannot resolve is named on the line of the draft. Nothing is written to Epicor while an approval is pending: the draft moves through approval stages, each approver picked by name, by whoever is least busy, or by the AI from a pool, and a condition written in plain language decides whether a stage is needed. Before each approver opens the draft, an approval agent reviews it against that approver's written responsibility and notes what to look at, and approvers can decide by replying to the email.

There are no templates per customer, no field mapping and no model training. Behavior is set with written instructions, and corrections become instructions. Fluent connects through Epicor Kinetic's REST API from outside, with nothing installed inside Epicor: no customization, no BPM, no staging table, no import file. Each agent generates an Epicor access scope listing exactly the services it calls, which you import and Epicor enforces.

Sales orders are one of ten Epicor Kinetic screens Fluent covers, alongside AP Invoice Entry, Receipt Entry, Cash Receipts Entry, Quote Entry, PO Entry and others.

Read how Epicor teams run order entry and AP on Fluent in our customer stories.

Comparison by category

Cells marked "check" or "varies" are questions to put to the vendor during evaluation, since the answer depends on the product version and your setup.

How to choose

Start with how your orders actually arrive. Pull a month of incoming purchase orders and sort them by channel and format.

• Mostly clean EDI from your trading partners: EDI is the right answer for them, and an EDI provider such as SPS Commerce or TrueCommerce is the natural fit. Count the orders that still arrive another way before deciding you need nothing else.
• A mix of EDI and everything else: keep EDI for the partners who send it and use Fluent for the long tail, which is often the larger share. Fluent also reads EDI and XML documents it is sent, and you can keep EDI customers out of it so nothing is processed twice.
• Already on Epicor ECM, or want a single vendor: Epicor Sales Order Automation deserves a look, because it keeps licensing and support with Epicor.
• Already on Epicor ECM and want to keep it: keep it, and let Fluent do the reading. Fluent's ECM document agent reads each document in place of IDC, fills the ECM document type's fields and line rows, and files it in ECM with the index values populated, so ECM stays your archive and workflow engine. See Fluent for Epicor ECM.
• Multiple ERPs across business units: a multi-ERP product such as Conexiom, since Fluent is built for Epicor Kinetic only.
• Under contract with your current tool: start the new one on the customers the current tool does not cover, and move the rest when the term ends.
• Only the order desk needs help: a dedicated AI order-entry tool covers it, if one person's review is all the sign-off you need.
• Epicor Kinetic, and AP, receipts or cash receipts are next on the list: an agent-based tool such as Fluent covers those screens from the same platform, with nothing installed inside Epicor.
• Orders need sign-off from more than one person, or the right person for each order: Fluent's approval workflows route each draft by rules written in plain language, cover approvers who are out of office, and write nothing to Epicor until the draft is approved.

Whatever you shortlist, run a trial on your own documents. Include your messiest orders: the customer who uses their own part numbers, the one who orders in cases while you sell in each, and the one who sends the same PO twice. How a tool handles those tells you more than a demo on clean samples. Then test the approval step:

1. Route one order to two approvers by a written rule and see who receives it.
2. Mark an approver out of office and see whether the order waits or reaches a delegate.
3. Approve an order by replying to the approval email.
4. Check what the AI flagged for each approver before they open the order.

Try Fluent on your own orders

If Epicor Kinetic is your ERP, put Fluent on your shortlist. The order entry automation page covers sales orders in detail and the Epicor integration page explains the connection. Paid plans start at $600/month, as shown on the pricing page. You can book a demo and run it on a batch of your own purchase orders.