A med supply invoice lands in the business office of a skilled nursing building. The PO number is printed in the header. The packing slip is in the receiving folder, signed by whoever unloaded the truck at the back door. The AP clerk has all three on the desk, and the match is what happens to them before the invoice is approved.
The purchase order says what the building asked for, with an item, a quantity, a unit of measure, and the price the building expected to pay. If the order went in off a contract, that is the contract or GPO price.
The receiving record says what showed up. On paper it is the packing slip with check marks and a signature. In a system it is the screen where central supply keyed what came off the truck.
The invoice says what the vendor wants to be paid, with its own lines and quantities, and the price the vendor's billing system put on each one.
A three-way match sets the three documents next to each other one line at a time. The item has to be the same thing on all three, the quantity billed cannot be more than the quantity received, and the invoiced price has to agree with the PO price. A line that does not clear is held until the clerk resolves whatever disagreed.
Where the match breaks
Start with the receiving record, the one of the three that starts at the back door. If the slip never made it from the dock to the folder, the invoice has a PO to match against and nothing to say the cases arrived. The clerk walks over to central supply and asks, or holds the invoice until somebody signs for it. Approving it on the PO alone is a two-way match, and a two-way match has nothing in it to catch a case that was back-ordered and never shipped.
The PO can be the missing document instead. A dietary manager calls the rep for a rush order of thickened beverages, the truck comes, the invoice follows, and nothing in the system says the order was placed. The clerk has to get a PO raised after the fact, and the price was never checked against anything before the product was on the shelf. That is what maverick spend looks like from the AP desk.
With all three on the desk, quantity can fail while everything else agrees. The PO asked for a full order of briefs, the packing slip shows part of it with the rest on back order, and the invoice bills the full order. Item and unit price agree, and the line still fails, because the building is being billed for cases it does not have. The clerk either short-pays to what the slip shows or holds the line for the back order, and the match does not make that choice.
The price comparison catches the order that went in at the GPO contract price and came back billed at list, or with freight folded into the unit price. The header total is off by the sum of those differences. An invoice keyed from that total shows nothing about which line caused it.
Substitutions break the item comparison. The ordered SKU was out of stock, a substitute shipped, and the packing slip and the invoice agree with each other while neither agrees with the PO. Whether the building keeps the substitute is a question for whoever placed the order, and the price on it has to be checked on its own, since the PO price belongs to the item that was ordered.
Where Adelpo fits in the match
On Adelpo the PO is raised in the Procurement module and the invoice comes in through AI Invoice Automation, so the PO and the invoice are in one place. The Price Discrepancies Report puts the ordered price next to the invoiced price and checks both against the contracted, GPO, or negotiated price. That is the price comparison above, run inside the system.
Where the receiving record is entered, and who at the building enters it, is the thing to ask on a demo of any platform, ours included. A system that holds the PO and the invoice and nothing from the dock is running a two-way match whatever the screen calls it. Ask what happens when one line fails and whether the other lines wait with it.
None of that counts the boxes. Somebody at the building still checks the cases against the packing slip, and if that step is skipped the receiving side of the match is a signature on a slip nobody read. Software can hold an invoice until a receiving record exists, and it has no way of knowing whether the person who signed opened the cartons.
Questions controllers ask about matching
what is the difference between two-way and three-way matching?
A two-way match compares the invoice to the purchase order. A three-way match adds the receiving record, so the quantity billed is also checked against what arrived at the building. Without it, a case that was billed and never delivered gets paid.
what does a three-way match check on each line?
Each line is compared on item, quantity, and price. The item has to be the same on the PO, the receiving record, and the invoice, the quantity billed cannot exceed the quantity received, and the invoiced unit price has to agree with the PO price. A PO in cases and an invoice in eaches fail the quantity check until one side is converted.
what happens when a three-way match fails?
The failed line is held until someone resolves it. A short shipment gets short-paid to what arrived or held for the back order, and a price above the PO goes to the rep with both prices in hand. When the document itself is missing, the clerk chases it down at central supply or with whoever placed the order.
does invoice automation software do three-way matching?
Only if the system holds all three documents. A tool that captures the invoice and compares it to the PO is doing a two-way match, whatever name it is sold under. Before buying invoice automation, ask where central supply enters what came off the truck and what the clerk sees when a line fails.