The invoice is in finance, the delivery note is in a drawer and the person who ordered the service is away. Everyone recognises the supplier, but nobody can confirm which part was received and accepted.
Order, delivery and invoice matching compares what was authorised, what arrived or was accepted, and what was charged. Give discrepancies an owner before the case disappears into a general approval queue. Matching evidence does not itself grant payment authority.
Photo by Jacques Dillies on Unsplash.
Understand the three records
The order identifies the agreed purchase. A receipt or acceptance record describes what the business actually received. The invoice states what the supplier is charging. Their dates and quantities may differ legitimately, so the job is to explain the relationship rather than force identical totals.
Microsoft's invoice-matching overview describes matching vendor invoice, purchase order and product-receipt information in Dynamics 365 Finance. This is a product reference for the concept, not a recommendation to adopt that system or assume its controls apply in yours.
Use a discrepancy record that supports a decision
Order and approved variation reference.
Delivered item, quantity, period or service milestone.
Evidence of acceptance and any limitation.
Invoice line and the difference identified.
Likely explanation, labelled unconfirmed until checked.
Person obtaining supplier or operational evidence.
Finance or commercial decision required.
Current status and next update.
Have the appropriate finance owner define the detailed rules, tolerances and accounting treatment. Operational staff should not create those boundaries while processing an awkward case.
An illustrative partial delivery
A business orders ten preparation packs and receives eight usable packs. The delivery record identifies the two missing units. An invoice then refers to all ten.
The receiving owner supplies the evidence and the purchase owner contacts the supplier through the agreed route. The authorised finance role decides how the invoice is handled. Nobody changes the receipt to ten simply to make the records agree, or assumes the entire invoice should be rejected without the appropriate review.
Include services, not just boxes
For a service, the receipt evidence may be an accepted deliverable or period of work under the actual agreement. A calendar appointment or supplier email is not automatically acceptance. Use clear acceptance criteria where a judgement about completion is needed.
Keep the fields tied to their authoritative records. Copies can support review, but the business needs a known route for correcting an error rather than three competing versions.
Check the handoff closes
Record who accepted the discrepancy investigation and what happens next. A finance query returned to an absent purchaser should remain an owned case, not an invisible task.
If supplier invoices regularly trigger a search for missing delivery evidence, Hili Consulting can help connect purchase, receipt and query ownership.
