How do you process orders after ordering?

[gourmets]

I have someone helping me finish up customizing my website, which is a drop ship site with multiple vendors. Due to the fact that its drop ship and I will be using multiple vendors, is there anyway to seamlessly process orders without having to do everything manually?

How do you all process your orders if someone else does the shipping and delivery? I'm just worried about times when I may get inundated with orders (looking to the future here ) or times when I might not be at my computer for days at a time. It seems like there must be a better way to automatically send orders to vendors. Just in my inexperience here, I'm thinking of something like for all orders processed with item #s A, B or C, an automatic email would be sent to Vendor XYZ with that part of the order, or something similar to keep it as hands off as possible?

Does anyone do anything like this, or know of a way that it could be done? Even if I had to pay someone to custom code it for me, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to deal with orders now that my site will be up and running soon.
Thanks!