Is manually copying WhatsApp orders into a spreadsheet just something small businesses accept?

Genuinely asking because I just spent a week on this and had no idea how common the problem was.

A friend of mine runs a small perfume business in Oman. Every morning looked like this:

• Wake up to 30+ WhatsApp messages
• Read each one manually
• Type names, addresses and orders into a spreadsheet by hand
• Miss some orders
• Forget to reply to others
• Repeat the next day

She just accepted it as part of running a business. Said everyone does it this way.

I'm a bit of a tinkerer so I spent a few evenings trying to sort it out for her. Managed to connect a few free tools together so that when a customer reaches out, their order details go straight into a spreadsheet without her doing anything.

She was shocked at how much time she was getting back honestly.

Just curious — is this a widespread problem or was her situation unusual? How do most small businesses handle this?