The purchase ledger inbox on a Monday
Every supplier sends invoices differently. The brick manufacturer emails a PDF per delivery. The timber importer sends one statement-style invoice covering a dozen loads. The plumbing and heating distributor sends a portal link. The purchase ledger clerk opens each one, finds the purchase order in BisTrack or K8, checks the goods received note, keys the invoice and moves on. Until one line is a few pence out, or the invoice charges for twenty packs when goods in booked eighteen.
Those go on a pile. The pile grows through the month, and the supplier's credit controller starts ringing.
Why so many invoices refuse to match
Most mismatches are not errors in the usual sense. They come from the way builders merchant goods are sold and received.
| Mismatch | Typical cause |
|---|---|
| Price | Supplier increase not loaded in your system yet |
| Quantity | Short delivery booked in correctly, invoiced in full |
| Unit | Invoiced per pack, received per unit, or per tonne against per bag |
| Carriage and surcharges | Delivery, fuel or small-order charges not on the PO |
| Direct-to-site | No goods received note because goods never touched the yard |
| Pallet charges | Charged by the supplier, not expected on the PO |
A clerk keying by hand has to spot each of these, work out which kind it is and who needs to resolve it, and they do it for every invoice.
The cost of a slow ledger
Supplier relationships suffer when invoices sit unpaid, and some suppliers put accounts on hold, which lands on the branches as stock that doesn't arrive. Early settlement discounts are missed. Genuine overcharges slip through when the clerk is rushing. Month-end accruals are guesswork because nobody knows what is stuck in the pile. And skilled staff spend their time typing.
Invoice capture and matching we build
- Invoices are collected from the purchase ledger inbox and any supplier portals you use, into one queue.
- Each invoice is read: supplier, invoice number, PO number, lines, quantities, prices, carriage and VAT. Well-known supplier formats use fixed templates; others use AI extraction, with low-confidence fields flagged.
- Lines are matched to the purchase order and goods received in your merchant system, with unit conversions applied from your product records.
- Invoices within the tolerances you set are posted automatically to your merchant system or accounts package.
- Mismatches go to a query list with the reason already stated: price differs from PO, quantity exceeds goods received, charge not on PO, no receipt yet.
- Price queries are routed to the buyer, quantity queries to the branch that received the goods, and the supplier can be sent a query email from the same screen.
Tolerances and who approves exceptions are yours to set. The system does the comparison; people decide what to do with the differences.
What the purchase ledger looks like after
The clerk starts the day with a query list rather than a pile of PDFs. Invoices that agree go through without anyone touching them. Queries reach the person who can answer them, with the evidence attached. Suppliers get paid on time for what was right and get a clear query for what wasn't, and month end has a known list of what is outstanding.
Is your purchase ledger stuck?
- Supplier invoices are keyed by hand from PDFs.
- A pile of unmatched invoices grows through the month.
- Suppliers chase payment for invoices you haven't processed.
- Carriage and pallet charges regularly cause mismatches.
- You can't say how much is waiting to be matched at month end.