A statement with forty invoices on it
Month end, and the merchant statement lists dozens of invoices across a handful of branches. Some have job references. Some have 'site' or a gang lead's name. There are delivery charges on jobs you thought were collected, and no credit yet for the tiles that went back after the Harrow Road job.
The bookkeeper can check the arithmetic, but not whether the goods went to the job, whether they were all used, or whether the price was the one you agreed with the branch manager.
Why merchant costs are so hard to pin down
Roofing buys a lot of small orders at short notice: a few extra rolls of membrane, lead, fixings, a pallet of tiles delivered to site. Orders are phoned or collected by whoever is nearest, and the paperwork trails behind.
- Orders are placed by phone with no written record against the job.
- Delivery notes are signed on site and lost or photographed badly.
- Job references on invoices are missing or inconsistent.
- Returns are made, but credit notes are not chased or allocated.
- Agreed account prices are not checked against invoiced prices.
What unchecked invoices cost
You pay for goods you never received, prices that drifted above your agreed rates, and delivery charges you should not have. Returns that are never credited are money lost. And because costs are not tied to jobs, you cannot tell which jobs made money, which is the question that matters when you next price a similar roof.
The problem grows with the number of branches and accounts. A firm that buys from two merchants and several branches of each has statements in different layouts, different cut-off dates and different ways of showing returns, and the bookkeeper has to learn each one.
The invoice matching we build
- Orders are raised from the job, even for phoned orders, with a short form that records what was asked for and a job reference to quote to the branch.
- Delivery notes are photographed by the gang into the job and read automatically for items and quantities.
- Merchant invoices and credit notes are collected from the accounts inbox or the merchant's online account and read into lines.
- Each invoice is matched to its job and order by reference, date, branch and items, with likely matches suggested where references are missing.
- Prices are compared with your agreed rates for each branch or merchant, and differences are flagged.
- Returns are logged when they leave the yard or site, and the system waits for the matching credit note, listing any that are overdue.
- Matched invoices go to your accounts package, such as Xero, Sage or QuickBooks, coded to the job. Mismatches go to a query list for a person.
| Check | Flags |
|---|---|
| Invoice against order | Items or quantities not ordered |
| Invoice against delivery note | Goods invoiced but not delivered |
| Price against agreed rate | Drift above your account prices |
| Delivery charges | Charges on collected orders |
| Returns against credit notes | Credits not yet received |
Anything unclear goes to a person. The system does the matching and leaves the decisions with you.
After the matching is running
The bookkeeper works through a short query list instead of the whole statement. Missing credits are chased while they are still fresh. Material cost per job is known, which feeds straight into better pricing. And the conversation with the branch manager about prices is based on evidence.
Does this sound like your month end?
- Merchant statements are paid in full without line checks.
- Delivery notes are often missing.
- Credit notes for returns turn up late or never.
- You are not sure your agreed prices are being charged.
- Material cost per job is a guess.