The three documents being matched
The purchase order records the commitment: which SKUs, how many units, at what unit price, from which supplier, due when. It is created before anything moves and is the only one of the three documents you fully control.
The goods receipt records reality: what physically came off the truck, in what quantity, in what condition, on what date. It is created at the dock and is the document most often skipped, because someone is in a hurry and the boxes obviously belong to an order that obviously exists.
The supplier invoice records the claim: what the supplier believes you owe. It arrives independently of the other two, sometimes weeks later, and is the document with the strongest incentive to be wrong in one direction.
Matching means lining up all three on the same purchase order line and confirming the quantity on the invoice does not exceed the quantity received, and the price on the invoice matches the price on the order.
What each kind of mismatch is telling you
A quantity mismatch between the receipt and the invoice usually means a short delivery that nobody flagged, a partial shipment being invoiced in full, or a receipt that was recorded against the wrong line. All three are worth chasing, and only the first is the supplier's error.
A price mismatch between the order and the invoice means either the supplier applied a list price instead of your agreed price, a surcharge was added after the order was raised, or the order itself captured a stale price. Left unchecked, price creep is the quietest way a supplier relationship gets more expensive.
A missing receipt is not a mismatch, it is a gap. Approving an invoice with no receipt behind it is paying on trust, which may be fine for a long-standing supplier and is exactly how duplicate and phantom invoices get paid everywhere else.
- Invoice quantity greater than received quantity: short delivery or premature invoicing
- Invoice price greater than order price: unagreed price change or a stale purchase order
- No receipt at all: no evidence the goods arrived, so nothing to match
- Receipt greater than order quantity: over-delivery that needs a decision, not silent acceptance
Two-way and four-way matching
Two-way matching compares only the purchase order and the invoice. It is common for services and for anything with no physical delivery, where there is no receipt to record. Applied to physical goods, it means you are checking that the bill matches what you ordered without ever confirming the goods showed up.
Four-way matching adds an inspection or quality-acceptance document, which matters when material has to pass a check before it can be used. It is the norm in regulated manufacturing and generally overkill for a distributor moving standard stock.
Making the match possible in daily operations
The control only works if receiving is captured line by line against the purchase order, not as a bulk stock adjustment after the fact. Scanning items in against the open order at the dock takes the same amount of time as writing a note and produces a receipt that can actually be matched.
Partial deliveries are the practical test. An order for 2,000 units delivered as 1,200 now and 800 later should leave the line visibly open after the first receipt, so the first invoice can be matched against 1,200 and not waved through against the full order quantity.
In StockFlow, receiving against a purchase order updates stock and leaves the ordered, received, and outstanding quantities visible on the line, so the receipt half of the match exists without anyone maintaining a parallel spreadsheet.
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