New supplier, new product line. IBIOS learns it from the price list.
Manual data entry from a long supplier price list is slow and produces errors. IBIOS Document OCR extracts every product, SKU, size, and price into draft records for you to review and approve. The AI Receptionist (coming soon) will answer callers’ questions about the new range from the first call after upload.
Why does a new supplier product line take weeks to go live?
Owner signs with a new tile supplier. Supplier sends a long PDF price list. Someone needs to get the products into the system so staff can quote on them and the AI can answer questions about them. Option one: data entry, by hand, line by line. It takes days, and typing errors creep in: wrong sizes, wrong prices, or missing SKUs.
Days in, half the products are entered. The person doing it has moved on to other work. The other half of the catalogue is still not in the system. A customer calls asking about a specific size from the new range. Staff member says: “We have that, but I’d need to check the price and come back to you.” Customer does not wait.
Weeks after the supplier agreement was signed, the product range is still not fully live. The supplier signed on as a new line because you intended to sell it. You are paying supplier account fees but not selling the products because they are not in the system correctly.
How do you upload a supplier price list PDF to IBIOS?
A step-by-step walkthrough from PDF upload to live products.
Price list PDF uploaded
Owner uploads the supplier catalogue PDF to IBIOS. Associates it with the new supplier record. Selects the product category. Starts the AI Document OCR process.
AI extracts product records
AI Document OCR processes each page: extracts product names, SKUs, sizes, colours, and prices. Creates a draft product record for each product. Flags any items with low confidence for manual review.
Owner reviews flagged items
Owner reviews the flagged items in the staging area. Most are corrected with minor edits. A few need to be looked up in the physical catalogue.
Batch approved and published
Owner approves the full batch of products. They go live in the product catalogue, linked to the new supplier with their prices. The IBIOS knowledge base is updated immediately.
AI can answer product questions
Once the AI Receptionist launches (coming soon), the next customer call about the new tile range will be answered from the live catalogue on sizes, colours, and availability.
What is the outcome?
Draft
product in the PDF extracted into a draft record by AI Document OCR
Approved
by you before anything goes live in the catalogue
Live
products are in the knowledge base immediately after approval (AI Receptionist answers coming soon)
The items that need manual review are an expected part of the process, not a failure of it. Reviewing a short list of flagged items is far less work than typing a whole catalogue by hand, and a person still checks every line the AI was unsure about before it reaches a quote.
Questions about price list upload and product extraction
What file formats does IBIOS accept for price list upload?
IBIOS accepts PDF, Excel (XLSX and XLS), and CSV files. For image-based PDFs (scanned catalogues), the AI uses optical character recognition to extract structured data. For digitally created PDFs, text extraction is direct and significantly faster. Excel and CSV files are processed as structured data with column mapping. Very large catalogues can be split by category before upload.
How does the AI handle products it is uncertain about from the PDF?
Products that the AI cannot extract with high confidence are flagged for manual review. Each flagged item shows: the raw text extracted from the PDF, the fields the AI has populated, the fields it could not confidently populate, and a confidence score. You review only the flagged items — the AI handles the confident ones automatically.
Can I review and edit extracted products before they go live?
Yes. After extraction, all products are created as draft records. You review them in the IBIOS product staging area: check names, SKUs, sizes, prices, and category assignments. Bulk-approve items you are happy with. Edit individual items that need correction. Publish the approved batch to your live catalogue. Nothing goes live until you approve it.
Does IBIOS link new products to the relevant supplier automatically?
Yes. When you upload a price list, you associate it with the supplier at the start of the upload. All extracted products are linked to that supplier with their prices stored as supplier-specific pricing. If the same product SKU already exists in your catalogue from another supplier, IBIOS identifies the match and adds the new supplier as an additional source rather than creating a duplicate product record.
Can the AI answer customer enquiries about new products immediately after the upload?
Coming soon for phone enquiries. Once you approve and publish a batch of products, the IBIOS knowledge base is updated with no restart or delay. When the AI Receptionist launches, it will answer questions about the new range from the next call, querying the live product data for a specific size or colour.
Related features
Price list upload feeds the product catalogue in IBIOS Inventory Control and the products you quote from in Quote Studio. See also PDF catalogue bulk import and IBIOS for tile showrooms. IBIOS (Integrated Business Intelligence & Operations System) is made by IBIOS Limited (NI743167), Northern Ireland. Access is by waiting list; there is no free trial.
New supplier? Get the full product range into your catalogue without retyping it.
IBIOS Document OCR extracts every product from your price list PDF and loads it into your catalogue. Early access by waiting list.