JobBOSS automation: orders and POs in without retyping

What people mean by JobBOSS automation

JobBOSS is job shop software from ECI Software Solutions. ECI now lists classic JobBOSS as being "for existing customers" and points new buyers to JobBOSS², which it calls a cloud-based ERP for job shops and make-to-order manufacturers (formerly E2 Shop). Most of this guide is about JobBOSS². Where something applies to classic JobBOSS, we say so.

When a shop owner asks about JobBOSS automation, they usually mean one thing: stop retyping. Customer POs come in by email. Vendor quotes and invoices come in by email. Someone keys each one into JobBOSS. This guide covers what JobBOSS² handles on its own, using ECI's own pages as checked on Oct. 24, 2026, and where the gap is. We don't resell JobBOSS or any add-on.

Why it matters for a shop: Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute estimate U.S. manufacturing may need about 3.8 million new workers from 2024 to 2033, and that about 1.9 million of those jobs could go unfilled if the skills gap isn't addressed. The office competes for the same people as the floor.

What JobBOSS² does on its own

• Quote to order. ECI's orders page says JobBOSS² converts estimates or quotes into orders "with point-and-click ease," and you can create an order from an estimate, a new part, or free form. You can change quantities and due dates even after a job is in process.
• Purchasing. The inventory and purchasing page describes auto purchase order generation, RFQs to several vendors, and buying to a job or to stock.
• Accounting. The features page says you can use JobBOSS²'s built-in accounting (payroll, AR and AP) or sync to QuickBooks, in real time or in batches.
• AI. The one AI feature ECI ties to JobBOSS² is the AI BOM Builder, which reads bill-of-materials data from PDFs, Excel files and images to speed up estimating. ECI's AI strategy page lists other AI features, but for other ECI products.

Classic JobBOSS has a Sales Order Processing module that cross-references customer part numbers with yours and links new orders to existing jobs or POs. That cross-reference matters a lot for automation, because customers order by their part numbers, not yours.

JobBOSS² is good at turning your own quotes into orders. The customer's PO is the part it doesn't read.

The integrations ECI lists

ECI's integrations page names QuickBooks, Payments, CADLink, uniPoint quality, ECI's MES for machine data, KnowledgeSync alerts (for example, "Purchase orders received today") and a Commerce Suite for AR and AP. It says some connect through an API and some by flat file.

If you quote in Paperless Parts, its JobBOSS one-pager describes two-way import and export with JobBOSS and JobBOSS², including sending the bill of materials and routing into the ERP once an order is won. As it puts it, "Nobody likes double data entry."

We didn't find an ECI page describing EDI for JobBOSS², and the EDI provider pages we tried for JobBOSS didn't load. If a large customer requires EDI, ask ECI and your EDI provider directly before you plan around it.

What the JobBOSS² API can and can't do

ECI publishes the JobBOSS² Public API openly, and this is the most useful fact for automation. In the v1 specification we read on Oct. 25, 2026:

• It can create orders, order line items, releases, quotes, customers and vendors.
• It can read and update purchase orders, but the spec lists no call to create a new one.
• It lists no call for entering vendor invoices or receiving. It can create AP checks.

So for customer orders, an outside tool can post a draft order straight into JobBOSS². For the buying side, the built-in auto PO generation does most of the creating, and vendor invoices are still entered in JobBOSS² itself or in QuickBooks if you sync. APIs change, so check the current spec before you build.

For classic JobBOSS, ECI's API catalog doesn't list a public API. Ask ECI what's supported for your version.

Getting emailed POs in without retyping

For the customer POs that arrive as PDFs, a setup that fits JobBOSS² looks like this:

1. Read the PO. Software reads the email and PDF: customer, PO number, lines, part numbers, revisions, quantities, prices and dates.
2. Match it. Find the customer, map their part numbers to yours, and find the quote it came from.
3. Check it. Compare price, quantity and revision to the quote. Flag anything that doesn't match: a new revision, a price the customer changed, a due date you can't make.
4. Create a draft order. Post the order and lines through the API, or convert the matching quote, and mark it for review.
5. A person approves. Your order desk sees the PO next to the draft, fixes the flags, and releases it. Nothing goes to the floor on the software's say-so.

The same reading step works for vendor quotes and invoices. Software can pull the numbers and compare them to the PO in JobBOSS², then hand a checked summary to the person who enters the bill.

What to automate and what to keep with a person

• Automate: reading POs and vendor documents, matching parts and quotes, filling in the draft order, and flagging differences.
• Keep with a person: approving every order, revision changes, price disputes, new customers and new parts, and anything that touches what gets built.

When JobBOSS² alone is enough

Be fair to what's already in the box. If most of your orders are repeats or follow your own quotes, quote-to-order conversion may be all you need. If you quote in Paperless Parts, won quotes already flow in. If your material buying runs off job requirements, auto PO generation covers it. And if you have someone in-house who can write code, the public API lets you build simple order creation yourself.

Custom automation pays off when many POs arrive as emails and PDFs from many different customers, with their own part numbers and formats, and someone spends hours a day keying them in. Time it first: our guide on measuring office automation ROI shows how.

How Peekgentic does it

We build the reading, matching and checking around your order desk's inbox and post draft orders into the ERP for a person to approve. Your team keeps working in JobBOSS. See our order processing build for how it works, step by step.