Supplier invoices, from arrival to transfer

What happens to an invoice from the moment it arrives

• The invoice arrives and receives a row, a status and a link to its order
• The system compares what was ordered, what was received and what is being claimed
• Whatever does not match stops and waits for a decision, instead of surfacing at month end
• After approval, a payment request is created
• The accountant executes the approved payment and uploads the confirmation

Who sees what

Procurement sees the amount, the status and whether the invoice was paid, but does not run payments and sees no bank or financial reports. The accountant sees approved invoices only, with the minimum context of their order and receipt.

This is separation of duties: whoever approves is not whoever transfers, and there is no route around it, however urgent.

Credit notes and bank reconciliation

A credit note is not a document filed to one side. It is part of the same chain, and the accountant is the one who processes it and reconciles it against the bank. Procurement sees the credit note’s status in the procurement context only.

What happens to an invoice that does not match

It stops. Not deleted, not approved with a caveat, and not waiting quietly. It is marked as a mismatch and waits for a decision from whoever is authorised to take it.

The difference from ordinary working practice is timing. Without a system, a gap between the order and the invoice surfaces at month end, after the money has gone, and dealing with it means a correspondence with the supplier. With a system it surfaces before payment, and dealing with it is a decision.

Reports and export

The owner and the accountant see reports and export them. Procurement sees no financial reports and does not export — not because there is no need, but because that information is not part of the role inside the system.

The monthly export is part of the accountant’s work, alongside bank reconciliation and credit notes.

The record

Every sensitive financial action is recorded, on every plan, the free one included. A confirmation uploaded after payment stays attached to the invoice and to the order everything started from.

A record is not an addition for the annual audit. It is what makes it possible to answer “who approved this, and why” without searching somebody else’s inbox.

Why an invoice is never deleted

A wrong invoice is still a document that arrived. Deleting it solves the discomfort and erases the trail: afterwards there is no way to explain why the supplier believes they are owed money and you believe they are not.

Instead a credit request is opened against it, with the reason, and it stays open until the money comes back. The credit note is a document in its own right, linked to the invoice it came from, and the accountant is the one who posts it.

The procurement manager sees that the credit exists and what its status is, in the procurement context only. They do not post it themselves.

What happens when an invoice is paid twice

A double payment is the hardest kind to catch, because each of the two looks correct on its own. Neither is unusual. What is unusual is that there are two.

Two checks catch it at two different points. Before the payment, the suspected-double-charge alert compares the invoice number against the same supplier. After the payment, bank reconciliation compares against the actual transactions, which surfaces both a payment that went out twice and one that never left at all.

That reconciliation is why the journey does not end at the transfer. Until the bank transaction has been matched, what is known is that an instruction was sent, not that the money moved.

What is left when someone leaves the business

In work split between mail, chat and a spreadsheet, a great deal of the knowledge sits with a person. Who agreed what with the supplier, why that price was approved, where the confirmation is. When the person leaves, it leaves with them.

Here the knowledge sits on the document. The confirmation is filed on the invoice rather than in a separate folder, the reason for an approval is kept with the approval, and a credit note is linked to the invoice it came from. None of it depends on a particular person still being here.

That is what the question “who approved this, and why” means, when it can be answered without searching someone else’s mailbox.