15/10/2026

Fix the source data

Automation is a lot like an employee on their first day (in a good way). They know nothing, do exactly what you say, and work hard to earn your trust. Needless to say, those similarities drift apart over time. But the main parallel between the two is source data: day-one employees don’t have any info stored in their head (hell, sometimes it feels like they have nothing at all in their head). If they are entering an order for a customer that doesn’t include product codes, they’re not going to be able to enter the order until they’ve identified the product codes somewhere else. Automation is the same - so fix your source data before automating stuff.

That might be missing product codes in your ERP. It might be that every customer delivery address is formatted different. It might be that stock levels are up the pole and purchasing is operating entirely on gutfeel. It might be excessive generalisation; works orders, invoices and jobsheets getting logged against generic placeholder jobs instead of their actual sales orders.

Similes are fun, so here’s another: automation with bad source data is like going 4wd-ing in a Lambo. If you don’t fix this stuff first, I can promise a difficult, noisy, sporadic and extremely expensive automation journey. Contact us if you don’t have the bandwidth to get your source data tidied.

-Fred