Manual Entry is Stupid in 2026

It’s 2026. Here we are, strapped with time sucking software in convenience retail.

Take the accompanying invoice for a hot new nicotine pouch product, Alp. Great product, lots of traction, but their invoice requires time and manual entry. While it’s very well laid out and clear to read, there are no barcodes to scan. So, your traditional options for entering this are either:

• Grab the old handheld scanner (if it’s still charged), and start hunting for, scanning, and quantifying each product. Also, say a prayer when you hit that sync button, because if the wheels fall off while its sending up that invoice to the cloud, you’ll be scanning it all in again.

• Hardnose it at the computer and try to punch all those UPCs in as fast as you can.

  After thats done, buckle up becuase you’re gonna need to type every description in, line by line. Also gonna need to add those costs and retails. Hope your carpel tunnel brace is handy.

  Or, if you have FileMinder, you can just snap it in, or in this case, because Alp emails you a nice crisp invoice, you can just hit the forward button and send it over to your @fileminder.ai email address that will automatically pull the invoice and convert it to EDI for you. Entering UPCs, descriptions, quantities, and costs faster than you can Velcro that wrist brace. All you need to do is upload it to your back office.