How to Calculate The Hidden Costs of Manual Order Entry

Every manual keystroke could be costing you up to 125% of your product’s value, without you even realizing it. 

In this post, you’ll learn exactly how to calculate your true ‘cost of order entry errors,’ why comparing flawed orders to perfect ones is your secret weapon, and the three proven strategies to stop the bleeding.

Figuring out the exact cost of a missed or incomplete order can be an ambiguous task. Not only do you have to worry about the time, money, and effort it takes to rectify the situation with your buyers, but your reputation as a trading partner drops with each failed transaction.

What’s really surprising is how often missed orders happen. They can be caused by a miscommunication in price, a typo on a form, or a small data entry error into an ERP system, which can snowball out of control.

The main reason for all this, not surprisingly, is human error. It’s truly remarkable that in today’s digital world, most of the expensive and even newsworthy mistakes are made by human error. For example, a simple clerical error cost Citibank over $900 million in misallocated payments in 2021. And remember the Rogers outage in 2022? It lasted 26 hours and left 12 million people without wireless or hard-wired services. Human-error was the culprit behind that too. To make matters worse, the economic toll on the Canadian economy was estimated at a staggering $142 million. That’s no small hit to the economy!

Mistakes like this aren’t uncommon. To be frank, they’re more the rule than the exception. 75% of all data loss of any kind comes from human error. For manually keyed entries, error rates can be as high as 4%. That means every 1000 data entries that your company makes, you could be seeing up to 40 errors, some of which will make an impact on your bottom line.

In every sector, companies are still handling vital and complex transactions with outdated systems that are vulnerable to human error or simple mistakes. Even if you’re not mistakenly losing $900 million, your profits are still getting eroded one preventable accident at a time.

For a supplier, it can go beyond just entering and shipping the wrong goods or incorrect pricing; it can also affect your reputation and credibility long term.

Should Erroneous Orders Be Compared to Completed Orders?

Yes. Directly comparing error-ridden orders to flawless ones reveals the hidden time, cost, and resource gaps,  letting you pinpoint where manual entry mistakes spike labor hours and shipping overruns.

When you compare the two, you also get a clearer picture of how much extra work the mistakes are causing. For example, if a completed order flows easily from start to finish, but a wrong one needs a bunch of fixes or even expedited shipping, that extra time and costs add up. Understanding these differences can help you improve your process, cut down on mistakes, and make everything run smoother in the long run.

What You’re Measuring

Every order travels through four key stages: Receipt → Entry → Fulfillment → Invoicing

To benchmark effectively, track:

• Processing time: How long does each order take from receipt to invoicing?

• Labor cost: Your team’s hourly rate × the minutes spent.

• Correction cost: Returns, credits, and any expedited shipping fees.

• Error rate: Percentage of orders flagged for manual fixes.

Muskoka Brewery: A Real-World Comparison

Before automation, Muskoka’s operations team spent three hours every day reformatting and re-keying LCBO orders from GMS into TNG. After partnering with OrderEase to fully automate that flow, what once ate up 15 hours per week now takes just 20 minutes, a weekly time savings of 14.67 hours and over 694 hours per year. Even better, manual entry errors dropped to zero, eliminating back-and-forth credits and reship fees entirely.

Your 3-Step Comparison Playbook

1. Export two 30-day samples

   • One of the error-flagged orders, one of the clean orders.

2. Calculate per-order KPIs

   • Average processing time, total correction costs, and return rates.

3. Visualize & diagnose

   • Bar charts (e.g., average cost per order) or heatmaps (error hotspots by channel, rep, or SKU).

This simple cycle of data pull → KPI calculation → charting makes it crystal clear where manual mistakes are draining your profits.

The Less Tangible Costs of Order Entry Errors

So far, all of the costs that we’ve covered can fit neatly into a spreadsheet. However, there are some intangible costs that consistent order errors can bring, which are harder to quantify, including damaged reputation or bad online reviews.

Damaged Reputation

This one’s tough to measure, but there’s no doubt that a bad reputation can seriously hurt your bottom line. For example, political pollsters, who make it their job to understand perceptions, still frequently get things wrong. Now, consider this scenario:

• An order error causes you to lose a relationship with Company A.

• Company A, in turn, tells their friend at Company B, who’s now considering your services, that they don’t want to work with you because of the poor experience.

• Not only have you lost Company A’s business, but now Company B is hesitant, and word starts spreading that your company isn’t reliable.

In the end, one error could cost you multiple clients—and even damage your reputation further as others hear about it. When 91% of B2B sales are influenced by word of mouth in some way or another, having a bad reputation can absolutely tank your company’s chances for long-term success.

Bad Online Reviews

A bad experience doesn’t just spread through word of mouth—it can also leave a mark on your digital footprint. Let’s go back to the example: if your order error was frustrating enough for the customer, they might take to the internet to share their experience, calling you unreliable.

This may not seem like a huge issue at first. In fact, studies show that 67% of B2B buyers prefer seeing a mix of positive and negative reviews, and 72% believe that negative reviews give them valuable insights into a company. However, with enough mistakes and dissatisfied customers, those negative reviews could quickly start to pile up, turning into a bigger issue for your reputation.

Proven Strategies to Minimize Order Errors & Boost Efficiency

Reducing order errors is essential for improving profitability and strengthening customer trust. The first step is to evaluate how your business handles order intake and submission. Start by identifying the methods that have the highest error rates—such as text, phone, fax, and email—and then work on reducing your reliance on them. This is a crucial step in the right direction.

After cutting back on those error-prone processes, here are three must-try strategies to put in place:

1. Keep All Your Product Info in One Place

Back in the day, only the biggest suppliers could afford fancy digital systems for managing product info. Luckily, that’s no longer the case. 

Think about it: with supply chain issues, price changes, and new products constantly popping up, using paper catalogs or outdated tools just doesn’t cut it anymore. Plus, manual processes come with a high error rate—around 10% or more. That’s way higher than what you’d see with digital solutions.

By centralizing all your product information in one digital hub, everyone from your sales team to your customers easily access accurate, up-to-date data. And if there’s ever an error? It can be fixed instantly across the board. Compare that to the old paper system, where a small correction was a huge hassle.

2. Go Digital for Customer Orders

Here’s a simple way to cut down on order mistakes: get your customers to place their orders digitally. It’s easier for them and better for you. 

With an efficient and effective online ordering system, customers can have clear access to your products, pricing, and inventory. They can handle their own orders, which means fewer chances for misunderstandings or miscommunication that happen over the phone or email.

By letting customers take charge, you’re shifting the responsibility for order accuracy to them. And let’s be honest—that’s a win for everyone involved.

For more information on online ordering, read our blog Why Your Business Needs To Commit To Online Ordering.

3. Connect Digital Orders to Your Internal Systems

Once customers and sales reps are submitting orders digitally, why stop there? Go the extra mile by connecting those orders directly to your internal systems using order automation software.

This eliminates the need for anyone to manually re-enter order details, cutting out typos, errors, and extra work. Plus, it speeds up order processing and fulfillment, making everything more efficient for your team and your customers.

By integrating your digital ordering system with tools like your ERP or accounting software, you’re streamlining the entire process, saving time, reducing mistakes, and keeping everyone happy.

Don’t Just Fix the Errors,  Fix the System That Allows Them

Order entry mistakes aren’t random. They’re the natural result of an outdated, overworked, and overly manual order operations process.

If your team is juggling PDF orders, email chains, manual ERP entry, or one-off sales workflows, it’s no wonder errors are happening. 

We created the B2B Order Operations Checklist to help you spot where manual friction is hiding in your business, whether it’s the number of channels you manage, the time spent fixing orders, or the visibility gaps that hold your team back.

Download the checklist and self-assess your biggest friction points.