Invoice to pay: capture, matching and approvals

In short

Everything between an invoice arriving and money leaving: how documents get captured, how lines get matched to a PO or contract, which checks run before approval, and what an exceptions-first queue looks like when only the genuinely odd invoices reach a human.

5 pages

definitions

Non-PO invoices: what an automated flow can match them against insteadNo purchase order means no agreed quantity, price or delivery to join against. Four substitute commitments, in order of strength, and what each one lets a system clear.definition7 min
The vendor master record: the fields that decide whether an invoice can be automated at allSix field groups, four fields almost nobody has, and the reason one supplier ends up as five rows. Most AP automation failure is a vendor master problem wearing a matching costume.definition9 min
Three-way matching: the documents, and the fields the join runs onThe purchase order, the goods receipt and the invoice each assert something different. Matching them is a join on 8 fields, and every one is a place it can fail.definition6 min
Tolerance rules: what a matching engine is allowed to wave throughOne global percentage leaks on high-value lines and screams on low-value ones. A usable tolerance carries a basis, a direction, a percentage-and-absolute pair, a supplier override and a cumulative cap.definition10 min

diagnostic

The same invoice got paid twice: finding the near-duplicate your check missedThe exact-match check passed because the second document differed in one of the three fields it compares. Five ways one bill becomes two, the fuzzy key that catches each, and where the sweep belongs.diagnostic11 min

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