Integration

Genius ERP plans the shop floor. The order still arrives by email.

Genius ERP is built for custom and made to order manufacturing, where a mistyped line does not just ship the wrong box, it builds the wrong thing. LevelOps PDF to Order reads the purchase orders your customers email, matches them to your Shopify catalogue, and hands your team a validated draft order to approve before anything reaches production.

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Shopify and Genius ERP, the combination that actually exists

We do not implement Genius ERP. We connect order intake in front of it. Genius ERP is built for custom manufacturers. Estimating and quoting, engineering data and drawing revisions, finite capacity scheduling, dispatch lists, shop floor data collection, purchasing, field service and job costing. It is designed around the reality that every order might be different, and that engineering, the schedule and the floor all depend on the order being right. Very few generic ERPs handle that well, which is why the shops that run Genius stay on it.

What Genius is not is a commerce platform, and no serious Genius shop pretends otherwise. So when a custom manufacturer also runs Shopify, it is almost never for the custom work. It is for the other half of the revenue: spare parts, replacement components, wear items, consumables, standard product lines and aftermarket kits. That side of the business behaves like distribution, and it is a good fit for a storefront with B2B accounts and price lists.

The purchase orders for that side still arrive by email. A maintenance manager sends a PDF listing eight part numbers, half of them written the way their own system names them. A distributor emails a spreadsheet. Neither Shopify nor Genius reads those documents, so somebody on your team does, and they do it under the same time pressure as everything else in a job shop. LevelOps PDF to Order takes that step off the keyboard and puts a checked draft order in front of a person instead.

Why intake errors cost more in a custom shop

The same mistake that costs a distributor a credit memo costs a make to order manufacturer a build.

A wrong line becomes a wrong build

Material gets bought, a work order is released, capacity is consumed. Discovering the error at shipping means scrap, rework and a schedule you cannot recover this week.

Parts orders compete with jobs for attention

The person keying a nine line spare parts PO is usually the same person expediting a late job. The small order waits, then the customer with a machine down calls twice.

Customers order in their own language

Maintenance buyers use their asset numbers, an old catalogue reference, or a description copied from a drawing. Your SKU is none of those, so every line becomes a lookup or a guess.

Legacy part numbers from a previous generation
Drawing callouts instead of catalogue codes
Descriptions transcribed from a nameplate

Mixed purchase orders have no owner

One document contains three catalogue items and one custom assembly. It is half an order and half a quote request, so it sits in the inbox while people decide who handles it.

Aftermarket revenue is high margin and badly served

Spare parts and service kits usually carry the best margin in the shop. They are also the orders that get the least process, because they are small, frequent and never urgent to anyone except the customer.

No sync means double entry

Many Genius shops have no Shopify to Genius bridge at all. The order gets typed in Shopify, then typed again into Genius, doubling both the effort and the chance of divergence between the two records.

Where PDF to Order fits, before anything reaches Genius

Intake is the only part we change. Estimating, engineering, scheduling and job costing stay exactly where they are.

01
The purchase order arrives by email
Forward it to your dedicated LevelOps address, or upload the file. Scans and photographed order forms included, which matters when the buyer works in a plant rather than an office.
- PDF, including scans and photos
- Excel and CSV part lists
- Email body text
- French and English documents
02
Every line is read and matched
Part numbers, quantities, units, requested dates, the customer PO number and any job or project reference come off the document, then each line is matched against your Shopify catalogue on code and on description.
- Account recognised from the sending domain
- Contracted account pricing applied
- Anything uncertain flagged with a reason
03
A person approves, and splits if needed
The draft order arrives with the source document attached. Catalogue lines are ready to approve. Custom or unverifiable lines are flagged so your estimator can pick them up in Genius quoting instead.
- Nothing is created automatically
- Corrections train the matching over time
- Full audit trail against the original file
04
The order reaches Genius the way it does today
If you have a Shopify to Genius bridge, the approved order travels it like any other. If you do not, your team enters a document that has already been read, matched, priced and checked, which is a different job from reading a raw PDF.
- No changes to Genius configuration
- No new module or licence
- Job creation and scheduling unchanged

There is no native Genius ERP connector, and we would rather say that plainly than let you plan around one. LevelOps writes to Shopify natively. Everything downstream is your existing flow, or an implementation conversation.

What data lands where

A clear boundary between what intake captures and what stays the ERP's job. We do not implement Genius. The draft sits in Shopify until a person approves it.

Read from the purchase order

Extraction runs before anything is created, so a bad document never becomes a released work order.

Buyer company, contact and email domain
Customer PO number and revision
Part references, quantities and units of measure
Requested delivery date
Job, project or asset references quoted by the buyer
Ship to address and site delivery instructions

Held for approval in Shopify

A validated draft order built from your Shopify catalogue and account terms.

Matched variants for catalogue parts
Company account and price list applied
PO number and requested date carried on the order
Source document attached to the draft
Flagged lines with the reason shown
Custom lines held for the estimator

Handled in Genius ERP

Everything that makes a custom manufacturer work stays untouched.

Estimating and quoting for engineered lines
Engineering data, BOMs and drawing revisions
Finite capacity scheduling and dispatch
Purchasing and material planning
Job costing, serial control and traceability
Field service and warranty history

Never touched

Deliberate limits, stated up front.

No writes to Genius item or job records
No work order release or scheduling
No changes to routings or revisions
No automatic order creation of any kind

Matching when the catalogue lives beside an engineering system

In a Genius shop the item data is split by design. Genius holds engineering items, BOMs, revisions and everything a job needs. Shopify holds the sellable catalogue: the parts, kits and standard products a customer can order without an estimate. PDF to Order matches against the Shopify catalogue, so a matched line is always something you can actually price and sell today.

That boundary is what makes the behaviour safe. Matching resolves the buyer's own part numbers, old catalogue references and free text descriptions against your catalogue with a confidence score, which is exactly what a maintenance buyer's purchase order demands. What it will not do is invent an engineering decision. If a line implies a revision level, a material substitution or a configuration your catalogue does not express, it is flagged for a person, because in custom manufacturing a confident guess is more expensive than a question.

Customer matching follows the same logic. The account is identified from the sending domain and the draft order is created against the right Shopify company with its own price list, so the contracted price is applied rather than whatever the buyer printed. New accounts still produce a draft, held for review, rather than being rejected. The practical upshot for your team is that the small, frequent, high margin parts orders stop queueing behind jobs, and the engineered work reaches your estimator as a document that has already been read.

Order types this fits, and order types it does not

Being specific about the boundary is more useful than a claim of universal coverage.

Fits: spare parts and replacement component orders from installed base customers
Fits: consumables, wear items and service kits ordered repeatedly by the same accounts
Fits: standard product lines a customer can order from a catalogue without an estimate
Fits: distributor and dealer orders against agreed price lists
Fits: mixed purchase orders, where catalogue lines are matched and custom lines are flagged for quoting
Does not fit: engineer to order assemblies that require an estimate, drawings or a configuration review
Does not fit: change orders against an in flight job, which belong in Genius project management
Does not fit: anything where a revision or material substitution has to be decided before the line is valid

What the implementation path looks like

Start with the app on the parts side. Take the integration conversation separately, with clear eyes about what exists.

01
Audit the inbound parts orders
We sample the purchase orders your team handled last month, separate catalogue orders from quote requests, and estimate how much of that volume the app covers today.
02
Check what your Shopify catalogue actually sells
The parts your customers order most should be sellable on Shopify with the right account pricing. Where they are not, that is a short catalogue and price list exercise, and it usually pays for itself on the storefront too.
03
Go live on the aftermarket accounts
Start with the installed base customers who send the most parts orders. Your team reviews every draft, corrections train the matching, and the estimator keeps the flagged custom lines.
04
Then decide about the Genius bridge
With intake fixed, you can judge whether a Shopify to Genius integration is worth building. Our implementation team scopes that work, and will tell you when a checked manual handoff is the more sensible answer.

ERP integration and implementation work is delivered fixed fee with defined milestones by a bilingual team based in Montreal. Detail at /en/erp-implementation.

How the options compare for a custom manufacturer

The comparison that matters is between ways of handling the parts and repeat orders, not between ERPs.

	Manual entry	Customer portal	Custom ERP scripting	LevelOps PDF to Order
Reads a scanned or photographed PO	A person does	No	No	Yes
Buyer changes how they order	No	Yes, they must log in	No	No
Resolves legacy and customer part numbers	From memory	Only exact codes	Only mapped codes	Yes
Splits catalogue lines from quote lines	A person decides	Cannot	Rarely	Yes
Human approval before anything is released	Yes	Order placed directly	Depends on the script	Yes
Cost when a document layout changes	Absorbed by people	Not applicable	Rework the script	None, no template
Development effort in the ERP	None	None	High	None
Time to first live order	Immediate, forever	Weeks of adoption	Months	Days

Manufacturers who removed the typing

Rated 5.0 on the Shopify App Store. These are engineering and manufacturing accounts, not generic retail.

No SKU, still matched

Vague descriptions resolved

Draft orders get entered by magic. Even when the PO contains a vague description and no SKU, this app can still match it. The AI is that good.

Modular Robotics

Robotics and education

Biggest time saver

Engineered products, emailed orders

What an amazing app. This is the biggest time saver!

Slice Engineering

Industrial equipment

4x faster

Per order processed

Because orders processed through LevelOps require a quarter of the time that full manual orders require, our team has gained considerable time back, which is now dedicated to more complex, valuable tasks.

Scrub Authority

Uniforms and medical apparel

Custom quotes, faster

Multi line requests and discounts

Really big potential for a B2B store. We are using it to streamline our quotation process for multi-line requests and custom discounts with great success.

Distributor CCP

Distribution

Genius ERP questions, answered honestly

Do you have a native Genius ERP connector?

No, and we will not imply otherwise. LevelOps PDF to Order writes validated draft orders into Shopify. If you already have a bridge between Shopify and Genius ERP, whether that is a middleware flow, a scheduled import or a custom integration, these orders travel it like any other Shopify order. If you have no bridge, the approved draft plus the attached source document becomes a clean, checked handoff for the person who enters it in Genius, which is still far faster than reading the raw PDF.

Does the Shopify plus Genius ERP combination even make sense?

For custom engineered work, no, and we would not sell it to you. Where it makes sense is the other half of a custom manufacturer's revenue: spare parts, replacement components, consumables, standard product lines and aftermarket kits. That business behaves like distribution, it sells well on Shopify, and it generates a steady stream of emailed purchase orders. Those are the orders PDF to Order removes from your team's keyboard.

What happens to engineered to order lines on a mixed purchase order?

They get flagged, not guessed. A PO that mixes catalogue parts with a custom assembly is split in review: the catalogue lines are matched and priced automatically, the custom line is flagged for a person who routes it into Genius quoting and estimating where it belongs. You lose nothing and the estimator still sees the original document.

Can it read customer part numbers and drawing references?

Lines are matched on description as much as on code, so customer part numbers, legacy references and abbreviated drawing callouts are handled without any alias table to maintain. What matching deliberately will not do is resolve a revision level it cannot verify. If a buyer orders a part at rev C and your catalogue only expresses one revision, the line is flagged for a human to confirm rather than silently accepted.

Do job numbers, project numbers and required dates survive?

They are extracted from the document and carried on the Shopify draft order, including the customer PO number and the requested delivery date, and the source file stays attached. Whoever creates the Genius job, or whatever integration you use, has every reference in one checked place instead of scattered across an email thread.

Our purchase orders arrive in French. Is that a problem?

No. Extraction and matching work on French and English documents, mixed language POs included, and our support team is bilingual out of Montreal. For Quebec manufacturers running Genius, which is itself a Quebec built ERP, that combination is usually the reason we get the call.

Do you handle serial numbers and traceability?

Serial and lot control belong in Genius ERP and we do not touch them. Intake only records what the customer asked for. If a buyer references a serial number of an existing machine, for example when ordering service parts, that reference is captured on the draft so the person building the job can tie it back.

Why is a human approval step non negotiable in custom manufacturing?

Because the cost of a wrong line is not a return, it is a build. In distribution a bad quantity means a credit memo. In your shop it means material bought, capacity consumed and a schedule broken. That is why nothing is created automatically, every low confidence line is flagged with a reason, and a person approves the draft before it moves.

Can LevelOps build the bridge from Shopify into Genius?

That is an implementation conversation rather than an app subscription. Our team does ERP integration work and can scope a Shopify to Genius flow, but we assess feasibility honestly first, including what Genius exposes and what your version supports. If the right answer is a checked manual handoff for now, we will say so.

How do we test this on our own orders?

Send three real purchase orders, ideally a clean parts order, a messy scan and one that mixes catalogue and custom lines. We run them live so you can see the matches, the flags and the split before you commit. Every store also gets your first 5 orders free, with no expiry.

Continue the deep dive

ERP and MRP implementation

How our team scopes ERP and integration work, from audit to go live.

PDF to Order for industrial equipment

The same intake problem, framed for equipment and parts sellers.

How it works

Read, match, price, approve, step by step.

Katana MRP

The cloud MRP option for makers with lighter engineering needs.

Purchase order automation

The general case for automating inbound purchase orders.

Field sales order form

For orders that start as a signed sheet on a customer site.

Send us a parts order and a mixed one

Bring a clean spare parts PO, a bad scan, and one that mixes catalogue items with a custom assembly. We run all three live and show you exactly what gets matched, what gets flagged, and what still needs your estimator.

your first 5 orders free, free allowance of 5 orders, bilingual support in English and French.

Book a demo Install on the Shopify App Store