A customer emails: three of twelve cylinders had cracks on unpacking, photo attached — with their own item number, not yours. Before anyone can reply, the item has to be found, the order located, the proof of delivery fetched from the carrier, the supplier's terms checked and the photos assessed. Seven systems, seven logins, one person — and three days later the customer has heard nothing.
For mid-sized manufacturers and distributors where claims are handled by customer service or finance, by hand, one system at a time.
None of them talk to each other, and each has its own login. Whoever takes the case makes the same round every time.
| System | What is fetched or done | Login |
|---|---|---|
| The customer's claim, the photos, the customer's own item number — rarely your order number. The reply to the customer when everything is done. | Shared mailbox or your own | |
| CRM | Who the customer is: contact person, account manager, agreements, previous claims. The case should be registered on the customer card so the salesperson sees it — and it gets forgotten. | Dynamics 365 Sales, HubSpot, Salesforce, Lime — own login |
| The document system | The order confirmation, the customer's purchase order, EDI messages — where the customer's item number and yours sit side by side — and the invoice as PDF, needed as evidence for the carrier and for the credit note. | M-Files, SharePoint archive, EDI portal, customer portal — own login |
| The carrier's portal | The proof of delivery — to be saved before it disappears from the portal — whether transport damage is already reported, the claim at the carrier, and the deadline for hidden damage, often seven days. | DHL, Schenker, DSV, PostNord, Bring — customer number and password per carrier |
| The supplier | Warranty terms, RMA procedure, who carries transport risk under the delivery term. A report if the fault is theirs. | Portal, email or the contract in SharePoint |
| The claims register | Your internal record: the case with classification, cause code, owner, cost and links to supplier and carrier. This is where quality statistics and ISO follow-up live — and what nobody has time to fill in properly. | In-house, the quality system or the ticketing system — own login |
| The ERP | The order, the invoice, the item references, the price, the shipment number — and finally the compensation: credit note or replacement order, return, stock. | Business Central, Dynamics, Monitor, Jeeves — own login |
30 to 90 minutes per case. The decision depends on who happens to take it. And the carrier's deadline is missed more often than anyone wants to know — then you pay for damage someone else caused.
Anders Nyström at Nordvik Industri writes that three of twelve cylinders have cracks, attaches two photos and gives his own item number, NV-HC-220. Nobody at your company has touched the case. Two minutes later the evidence, the proposal and three buttons are in Teams. This is what happened in between — step by step, system by system.
The email and the photos. Picks out the customer's item number, quantity and whatever references there are. Classifies the case: transport damage, product fault, wrong delivery or quantity — and says how certain it is.
Microsoft 365Who the customer is, who the contact is, who the account manager is, which agreement applies — and whether the customer has claimed before. The case is registered on the customer card so the salesperson sees it before the customer calls.
CRM · APIThe customer writes their own item number, not yours. The flow translates it through the item references in the ERP — and where those are not maintained, it logs in to the document system: the order confirmation or the customer's purchase order, where both numbers appear. Then it fetches order, price, delivery date and shipment number from the ERP — and the invoice as PDF from the document system, since it is needed as evidence for the carrier and for the credit note. The quantity is checked against the claim.
ERP · API · document systemWith your customer number. Fetches the proof of delivery and saves it as a document in the case — it disappears from the portal after a while, and without it there is nothing to show when the carrier disputes. Checks whether transport damage is already reported — by the driver, the terminal or the recipient. If it is, the claim is created at the carrier right away, with shipment number, the POD and the invoice as evidence. If not, days are counted against the hidden-damage deadline. This is often where it is decided who pays.
Carrier's portal · your loginThe delivery term says who carries transport risk. The warranty says whether a product fault can be pursued. The RMA procedure says how.
Supplier portal or the contract in SharePointPackaging or goods? Crush damage or cracking? The photos argue for or against the classification, and that is written into the case.
The photos from the emailA photo missing, an item unclear, a decision outside the rules? The flow asks — the customer by email, you in Teams or email — and continues when the answer comes. Nobody guesses, and nothing sits waiting for someone to notice.
Teams · Microsoft 365The case is entered in your internal claims register: classification, cause code, owner, preliminary cost, links to supplier and carrier. That is the record your quality statistics are built on — and it is complete every time, not when someone gets around to it.
Claims register · API or formReplace, credit, reject or request more evidence — with the rule applied, the amount, and the evidence source by source. What argues against is included.
The caseThe amount decides who: customer service, sales manager or CEO. The question arrives in Teams or email — one button. If you change the decision, you do it there, and the reason is logged.
Teams or email · your thresholdsThe compensation in the ERP: credit note or replacement order, return and stock. Claim at the carrier — right away if the damage is already noted, otherwise as hidden damage within the deadline. RMA at the supplier. Reply to the customer with a return label. Decision and cost written back to the CRM and the claims register. Six systems, one approval.
ERP · carrier · supplier · email · CRM · claims registerThe carrier's reply, the supplier's credit, the return that should arrive, the deadlines that run. Gets in touch in Teams or email when something needs another decision.
OngoingNothing is sent, credited or reported without someone at your company approving it — the flow prepares, you decide.
No new system. The evidence arrives as a card in Teams — or in email — with three buttons. Everything else is written into the systems you already have.
Anders Nyström emailed at 09:14: 3 of 12 hydraulic cylinders with cracks on unpacking, 2 photos. Customer item NV-HC-220 = your ART-7710. Order 58213, invoiced 2026-08-19.
Monitoring the carrier's reply — reminder 2026-09-04. The log, 14 events with the account per action, sits on RK-2026-0312.
The evidence sits in the claims register, the decision in Teams, the compensation in the ERP. No new system — just a question where you already are.
This is the question everyone asks first: how does it log in? The answer is that it does it the way you do, with the accounts you already have, and every action carries the account's name.
| System | How | Whose account | What is logged |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email, Teams and photos | Microsoft Graph — straight against the mailbox and Teams, nothing to install | The shared mailbox and a Teams app, via an app registration in your Entra | Every email read and sent and every question in Teams, with case number |
| CRM | API — Dynamics 365 Sales, HubSpot, Salesforce and Lime have it | Service account: read on customer and agreements, write on case and note | Lookup and note, with case number |
| The document system | API where there is one — SharePoint and M-Files have it. Otherwise the portal through a browser: EDI portal, customer portal | Service account, or your login to the portal — in your Key Vault | Which documents were fetched — order confirmation, invoice — and which item number was translated to which |
| The carrier | API where offered. Otherwise the portal through a browser — the same clicks a person makes, but logged | Your customer number and your login, stored in your Key Vault — never in a prompt | The POD saved as PDF in the case, and a screenshot per action: damage report checked, claim created |
| The supplier | Portal through a browser, email, or the contract in SharePoint | Your login at the supplier | RMA number, reply and time |
| The claims register | API if there is one. Otherwise the form through a browser — in-house, quality system or ticketing system | Service account, or your login | Case number, classification, decision and cost — complete every time |
| The ERP | API where there is one — Business Central, Dynamics, Monitor, Jeeves have it | A service account with only the rights the case requires | Every record created carries the service account's name in the ERP's own log |
| The customer | Email from your mailbox, in your name — as a draft first if you prefer | Your mailbox | Everything sent is in the case |
No passwords in prompts, no passwords with us. The accounts are yours and live in your Key Vault. Where the system has an API we use it. Where there is only a portal, Claude Code drives the browser — and every click is logged with the account that made it.
No new accounts, no new systems. Claims land where they already land, and the flow logs in where you already log in. Everything runs in a Microsoft environment.
The shared one you already have, or the one you want. Photos and attachments come along.
CRM, carriers, suppliers, the claims register, the ERP, the document system. Placed in your Key Vault once.
Who may approve what. Which deadlines and evidence apply. What always goes to a person.
A review of your last thirty cases first, so the rules are yours and not ours. Then in production in two to four weeks.
Get in touch and we will take it from there. A short call is enough to understand how your cases run today — which systems, which logins, who decides. That is the picture that determines what the flow should look like at your company.