Three-Way Match and Post a Purchase Invoice

When the supplier’s bill arrives, you record it as a purchase invoice and check it before you accept it. The check is a three-way match: for each item, Veona compares what you ordered (from the purchase order), what you received (from the goods receipt), and what you are being invoiced (the bill in front of you). If the three agree within tolerance the line is Matched; if they differ it is Flagged or, in the worst case, Blocked. Submitting a matched invoice posts it to the general ledger — turning the receipt accrual into a real payable (Accounts Payable, the money you owe suppliers).

Who / when: the accounts payable clerk (the AP clerk) raises and posts purchase invoices — they read the buying chain but do not order or receive, so the person checking the bill is independent of the person who bought and the person who received. We will follow the AP clerk, matching a supplier’s bill against a confirmed receipt.

1. AP clerk — open Procurement → Purchase Invoices and press “New From Receipt”. Every purchase invoice starts from a goods receipt, so the match has a received side to compare against.
2. AP clerk — pick the Goods Receipt with the picker. The supplier and the purchase order are derived from it, and the invoice lines default from the PO (the ordered items at their ordered cost), so you only edit the figures the supplier actually billed. Record the Supplier Invoice Ref (the supplier’s own number), the Posting Date and a Due Date.
3. AP clerk — check each Invoice Line: confirm the Qty, the Unit Price, and any Tax the supplier charged. Press “Create & Match” — Veona saves the invoice and runs the three-way match immediately.
4. AP clerk — open the invoice and read the 3-Way Match grid. Each line shows Ordered, Received and Invoiced quantities, the ordered and invoiced unit prices, and a result:
   • Matched — ordered, received and invoiced agree within the facility’s tolerances. Good to post.
   • Flagged — a difference within reason (a small price or quantity variance, or a no-PO direct receipt). It can be posted, but only with an override reason.
   • Blocked — a variance beyond what is allowed. It cannot be posted until it is resolved.
5. AP clerk — when you are satisfied, press “Submit & Post”. If the match is Flagged, Veona requires an Override Reason before it will post (for example, “agreed price increase”); if it is Matched, it posts straight away. A Blocked invoice has its post button disabled until the variance is fixed.

Submitting posts this set of entries to the general ledger:

• Dr GRNI — for the value the goods receipt accrued, clearing the goods received not invoiced hinge account back down. Once the PO is fully received and invoiced, GRNI nets to about zero.
• Dr Purchase-Price-Variance — the difference between what was invoiced and what was received-at-ordered-cost (a favourable variance is a credit instead). This is where a price that drifted from the order lands.
• Dr Input-VAT — any recoverable tax on the bill.
• Cr Accounts Payable — the total now owed, booked against the supplier as the party. This is the open payable you will later pay.

Foreign-currency invoices

A purchase invoice can be in a foreign currency — a supplier billing you in USD or EUR when your books are kept in another currency. On the new-invoice form, set the Currency to the supplier’s billing currency and enter the Exchange Rate (how much of your base currency one unit of the billing currency is worth, at the posting date). Veona shows the base-currency equivalent of the total as you type. The invoice is held in the billing currency, but the ledger entries are booked in your base currency at that rate — so the payable carries a booked rate that the eventual payment will be measured against.

Note

The match tolerances and whether a flagged match may be overridden are set by an administrator under Procurement → Settings: a quantity tolerance (how much over-receipt is allowed before a hard block), a price tolerance (how much unit-price variance is allowed before a flag), and a switch to allow or forbid force-posting a flagged match. Tighten these to make the match stricter.

Caution

The GL post is best-effort: it needs the GRNI, Accounts Payable and tax accounts to be mapped first. If an administrator has not mapped a required account in Finance Settings, the posting is silently skipped — the invoice still records, but no ledger entry is made. Map the chart-of-accounts links before you go live; see the Finance & Accounting journey.

What happens next

The invoice is posted and there is now an open payable on the supplier — visible on the Open Payables tile of the procurement overview. The chain’s last money step is settling it. Record a payment against the open invoice, choosing the cash or bank account it comes from. Continue with Pay a Supplier and Clear the Payable. For the wider ledger view of Accounts Payable and the trial balance, see the Finance & Accounting journey.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Receive the Goods Against the Order
• Next: Pay a Supplier and Clear the Payable
• Related: Apply Landed Costs and Process a Goods Return · Keep a Signed Stock Movement Ledger