Supplier invoices matched to the PO and the receipt, then queued for approval.

A supplier emails a PDF invoice. Your AP clerk finds the PO, checks what was actually received, compares quantity and price, chases whatever doesn't agree, codes the rest and sends it for approval. An invoice from your plater or heat treater also has to land on the job it was for.

For the test, AI goes through copies of those invoices with the POs and receipts behind them. It drafts the match and the coding, line by line, and holds each invoice that doesn't agree, with the reason written out. Nothing gets approved or paid.

Three documents, three timings. A three-way match lines the invoice up with the PO and the receipt, and in a plant the three seldom arrive together. A bar order comes in two loads and gets billed once; an invoice shows up before the truck does. In Epicor, AP Invoice Entry pulls in receipt lines, which is where PO, receipt and invoice meet, and a charge the PO never had, such as a rush fee, goes on as a miscellaneous charge. NetSuite sets tolerance and difference limits for bill to PO and bill to receipt by vendor, item or subsidiary. The draft applies your own tolerances, whatever system set them.

Metal prices move between the PO and the invoice. Stainless mills set a monthly surcharge on top of their base price, tied to the price of nickel, so the stainless price on a PO cut weeks ago may not be the price on the invoice. Steel is often priced per hundredweight while the PO line counts bars or pieces, and the unit of measure has to be converted before quantity and price can be compared at all. A cutting charge, or freight billed prepaid and add (the supplier pays the carrier, then adds the freight to your invoice), can appear as a line the PO never carried.

Outside processing belongs on the job. When parts go out for plating, heat treat or coating, the PO line buys an operation, not stock. In Epicor each subcontract operation gets its own PO line tied to the job operation, and receiving that line is what puts the cost on the job. So the plater's invoice has to find the job and operation as well as the PO, and its pricing, per pound, per piece or per lot, has to agree with how the PO was written.

Coding the invoices with no PO. Utilities, repairs, tooling regrinds and a rented forklift often arrive without one. Those get the GL account and department your team used last time for that supplier, and anything new is flagged for a person. Invoice numbers already in your history, statements sent as if they were invoices, and credits for rejected parts are all caught before the queue.

Bank changes never go through. A supplier email asking you to pay a new bank account is held every time and never touches a vendor record. Fraud guidance from banks and federal agencies says to confirm those requests by calling a number you already have, never one in the email, and the draft says exactly that. Your reviewer, the person on your AP desk who knows these suppliers best, checks every match, every hold reason and every code against what your team posted at the time.

Once your reviewer says yes, new supplier invoices run through the same match for about 30 days.

Each one waits in your approval queue for a person to approve, correct or reject it, and payment runs stay exactly where they are today. The scoring table stays in use all month.