What is the 3-Way Match Process in Accounts Payable?

During the online invoice approval process, the invoice quantity and amount is matched to the purchase order to ensure that tolerances are met. Typically with a manual match, a member of the accounts payable team gathers all the relevant paper documents in a transaction in order to satisfy the matching procedures. He or she looks at each line of each document to make sure they all match. A 3-way matching process can help prevent instances of payment fraud by ensuring that only invoices for goods and services that were actually received are paid. As organizations grow and more purchases are made, it naturally becomes harder to keep track of all the important information between buyers and vendors.

• Book this 30-min live demo to make this the last time that you’ll ever have to manually key in data from invoices or receipts into ERP software.
• AP innovations are vital elements for a sustainable and centralized global business solution, one payment at a time.
• Plus, the AP team must perform endless tedious work, and mistakes are inevitable.
• With multiple parties involved in this process, it’s critical for all this information to be aligned to ensure accuracy and consistency.
• An AP team will need to retrieve the purchase order and receiving report and cross-check the quantities, price and other information across all three documents.

As a result, automation saves time, money, and human resources while helping the organization avoid late payments and invoice fraud. Companies that choose to employ the three-way-match process do so to reduce mistakes, catch illegal activity, and save money. The problem is, 75% of businesses don’t have a fully automated purchasing process so by trying to avoid overpaying, they can often end up with much higher processing costs. Using even a partially manual procurement system can leave a business hemorrhaging money to a surprising degree. Today, an increasing number of business owners and departments in charge of finances are using three way match processing to mitigate risk and reign in company spending. To counter the threat of overpaying for goods and services or paying a counterfeit invoice, you should seriously consider using automated three way matching into your accounts payable processes.

Benefit of 3-way matching #2: Systems of Simplicity

AP professionals recognize the 3-way match and 2-way match are crucial to ensure accuracy in the purchase order invoice process. With that in mind, a 2-way match matches the invoice quantity and price to the purchase order and price. A 3-way match adds a goods receipt to ensure the company receives the same number ordered and invoiced. Consider the differences between a 2-way and 3-way match in accounts payable and how it impacts the bottom line. The more time spent on the purchasing and accounts payable process, the less time you have for everything else. When it’s taking a lot of time to place orders, complete the approval process, and deal with supply chain logistics, that’s often a sign of an inefficient procurement process. For example, Nick Staples, CEO of Zenergy, a cycling-focused chain of workout studios, was spending an average of 8 hours on purchasing.

3 way match and 2 way match are critical aspects to the purchasing and invoice payment process. That’s why so many companies are turning to AP automation solutions that include automated 3 way and 2 way PO matching. It commits a buyer to pay a seller for a specific product or service that will be delivered in the future. Gathering the required documents and manually checking invoices against them just isn’t practical in the long run. Many companies still rely on manual processes to verify incoming invoices. One example includes fraudsters posing as vendors and sending fake invoices. Another includes an employee colluding with a vendor to inflate prices and splitting the difference.

Benefits of 3-Way Matching

Using this process, a company can bypass profit drains from making erroneous, duplicates, or fraudulent payments. It is a method for processing a vendor invoice to ensure that payment is complete and accurate. The primary objective of this process is to save businesses from overspending or paying for an item that they didn’t receive. Three-way matching is a great way to avoid discrepancies between orders, receipts, and invoices.

That way, employees only look at problematic documents or high-value invoices, i.e., the ones that are most worthy of man-hours. Automating three way matching and other AP processes saves time, reduces labour costs, prevents fraud/errors, and provides vendor discounts in the long run. For example, if the vendor invoices the wrong product, accounts payable will need to request a corrected invoice to complete the match. Waiting to receive a corrected invoice from the vendor will delay invoice approval, payment and reduce overall productivity. 3 way matching of invoices helps highlight errors or inconsistencies in any of the 3 important documents mentioned above. Errors/issues could include wrong payment details, inflated/incorrect prices, wrong or damaged products etc.

In this case, the purchase order for 1000 circuit boards at 5 INR each was raised, which totals to 5000 INR. The third step would be to match the PO and invoice data with the goods received receipt data. The receiving department will have the receipt that specifies the cost and quantity of goods ordered.

Speed Up Invoice Approvals

Whether it’s from the government or other parties, you’ll need to provide accurate records if your company is ever what is 3 way matching in accounting audited. 3-way matching provides a clear audit trail that verifies the legitimacy of all financial transactions.

Within this application, users can acknowledge receipt of goods and services at the point of delivery and track the progress against the Purchase Order to eliminate one step within the three-way match process. Additionally, in SAP, customers have the option to do away with invoices altogether with an evaluated receipt settlement . Using an ERS, goods purchased using your records can be set to automatically create an «invoice,» so the vendor doesn’t need to spend the time completing and submitting one. With these features, an automated solution can be further simplified to consider all the steps in a 3-way match are in alignment without duplicating steps that aren’t necessary. One of the major drawbacks to 3 way matching in accounts payable is the time taken to verify individual pieces of data on each document, especially line item data. Automating the process means that the data is automatically verified and only exceptions are flagged for manual verification. Because less time is spent verifying the data, orders get processed and paid quicker, meaning organizations can also benefit from early payment discounts.

Hermes applies the3-way matching accounts payable processto streamline the AP flow and automate the system. It reduces your financial department’s liability while encouraging a paperless process and increasing productivity. If you’re interested, book a demo and learn how Hermes can automate your AP process.

AP Automation Makes 3 Way Match or 2 Way Match Simple

If the information matches, accounts payable staff approves the invoice and the accounting department sends payment. If the information doesn’t match, a member of the accounts payable team will need to follow up with the purchaser and the vendor to sort out the discrepancy. A supercharged 3 way matching AP workflow ensures timely vendor payments. Thus automation can help save costs while establishing a stable supply chain. Automated 3 way matching software operate on preset rules/workflows based on tolerance levels and approvals. They quickly flag errors and potential cases of fraud so that AP teams can take immediate action. Next, the invoice and PO details are compared/matched against those in the order receipt .

By now, you realize that three-way matching is an efficient, thorough process that saves money and time, all while helping maintain positive relationships with vendors and suppliers. Plus, it helps ensure your company isn’t subject to fraud and is ready and organized for audits.

Goods Receipt Note

One effective way to improve payment processes is to adapt the three-way matching process. Like purchase orders, invoices are sequentially numbered for internal control, which promotes theinvoice matching process. It also includes an invoice number and the same information as in the purchase order. A three-way match is an accounting control that ensures that the purchase order, inventory receipt, and invoice all match in terms of product, quality, quantity and price. The process starts when purchasing creates an order and sends it to a vendor.

• And additional 0 or a misplaced comma during manual data entry can be the difference between a $100 cost and a $1,000 error.
• With 3-way matching, your company can catch any mistakes or discrepancies early in the invoice approval process before they turn into bigger problems.
• The three-way match takes the information considered in a two-way match and adds the receiving report.
• When your company receives an invoice, it’s a formal request to pay money.
• The costs of manual three-way matching involve more than actual dollars.
• It reduces your financial department’s liability while encouraging a paperless process and increasing productivity.
• However, let’s say that instead of 10 boxes of paper, your receiving department only counts 9 boxes of paper.

For 3-way matching to be effective, the accounts payable team needs to spend a substantial amount of time and effort in matching and processing invoices. Automating the 3-way matching in accounts payable relieves the team from labor-intensive verification and matching tasks and improves the accountability and accuracy of matching. Let us understand the 3-way matching process with the following example. A vendor invoice for 5000 INR for 1000 integrated circuit boards is received by the buyer. The first step is to cross-check whether the PO was approved before fulfilling the invoice. The second step is matching invoices to purchase orders in terms of price and quantity.

Not all companies need or will use an inspection report, so this fourth step isn’t always possible. Plus, the additional step can add valuable person-hours to the process.

• The invoices are scanned electronically to extract important purchase data like the PO number, quantities, and prices.
• With DocuPhase, you can build custom workflows that automatically route invoices to the right approvers.
• The same information is extracted from the PO and GRN and verified against that obtained from the invoice.
• First, an AP clerk calls up the purchase order to verify that the marketing department was authorized to purchase 100,000 brochures from that vendor.
• Find out how you can streamline your accounting process with automation.

Plus, your team won’t have to constantly switch between different apps. You can also add dynamic routing to your workflows with business rules based on values or whatever makes sense for your company.

Schedule B2B Payments

A purchase order or PO is a company’s standard, sequentially numbered form that lists the products or services it requires. Companies can set thresholds to determine which invoices require three-way matching. Brainyard delivers data-driven insights and expert advice to help businesses discover, interpret and act on emerging opportunities and trends. Compared to the 2-way and 4-way match, the 3-way match process is the ideal choice of internal control.

DocuPhase delivers process automation, document management, and capture tools designed to help your enterprise stay organized and meet evolving technology and business needs. Once in the system, pre-established routing can take place https://www.bookstime.com/ for approvals, matching, and verification. With a strong software solution this will include notifications to keep the involved parties informed that there is work to be done or that a particular document requires attention.

The accounts payable three-way match process involves processing an invoice by matching the data with a purchase order and with the goods received the note. Clearly, 2-way matching leaves room for errors because the packing slips and receipts are not included in the process. In 3-way matching, the AP team matches the PO to the PO invoice and the packing slip or receipt to determine discrepancies. The primary reason for 3-way matching is to prevent inaccurate or fraudulent invoice payments by resolving mismatches before processing payments. However, there are advantages to both depending on the company, its size and systems, and its business relationships. If you work in finance or accounting, you are most likely familiar with three-way invoice matching in accounts payable. The process of matching invoices to purchase orders and goods received notes has been around for years and is a method of processing a supplier invoice to the point of accurate payment.

• Tolerance keys are used for invoice blocking for reasons such as discrepancies existing due to price, quantity or another variance on the invoice.
• This process was described in detail in the “Pay Based on Receiving Approval Only” section earlier in this chapter.
• In some cases, a supplier takes time to fully complete an order over multiple deliveries.
• If your AP team receives hundreds to thousands of invoices monthly, it is time to bring on automation to optimize your processes.
• Manually checking individual line items on an invoice against a purchase order and a goods receipt is a labor-intensive process.

To be successfully verified, the invoices must satisfy matching tolerances. If they don’t, a hold is placed on the invoice and payments cannot be rendered until the hold is released or resolved. A held invoice operates as a sort of fail-safe that prevents the payment of an unmatched and unverified order.

Purchase orders – A purchase order is the official confirmation of an order. It is a document sent from a purchaser to a vendor that authorizes a purchase. Order gives you one platform to automate the entire matching process, saving you from manual data entry and human error. As a business owner, the last thing you want to do is pay a fraudulent or inaccurate invoice. Three way matching can help safeguard your accounts payable against incorrect or fraudulently submitted invoices.