Keeping three-way matching from slowing every invoice
How a telecom provider can keep three-way matching for the purchases that need it, without holding up small, recurring and near-match supplier invoices.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Telecoms businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The router supplier has phoned again. Their invoice for last month's delivery has been sitting in your payables queue for weeks because the price on it differs from the purchase order by a few cents per unit, after a currency adjustment nobody told the buyer about. Meanwhile the invoice for the monthly tower-site security contract is stuck too, because nobody raised a purchase order for something that has not changed in years.
A provider buys a lot: network equipment and spares, upstream capacity, site rentals, installation subcontractors, fuel for generators. Three-way matching protects that spending, but applied to every invoice in the same way it becomes a bottleneck that annoys the suppliers you depend on. This article looks at how to keep the protection where it counts and lighten it where it does not.
Why matching everything can backfire
AccountingTools describes three-way matching as a payment verification technique for making sure a supplier invoice is valid and can therefore be paid. It compares three documents: the purchase order (what you agreed to buy), the goods-received record (what actually arrived) and the supplier's invoice (what you are being asked to pay).
It is a strong control. AccountingTools warns that a two-way match, which compares only the order with the invoice, does not look at receiving documents and so risks paying for a quantity that was billed incorrectly. For a provider buying pallets of ONTs or drums of cable, paying for units that never arrived is a real risk.
But AccountingTools is just as clear about the cost. Three-way matching is labour-intensive, and the payment delays it causes can annoy suppliers and stop a business from taking early-payment discounts. Its guide to three-way matching sets out both sides, along with ways to make the process lighter.
Taking small and recurring invoices out of the match
AccountingTools suggests several ways to make three-way matching more efficient. Two of them suit a provider well: excluding small-value invoices, and excluding recurring ones.
Small-value invoices such as a courier charge, a box of connectors or a locksmith's call-out cost more to match than they could ever lose. Decide on a value below which an invoice needs only a manager's approval, and write it into your purchasing policy.
Recurring invoices for the same service at the same price each month (site rentals, security, cleaning, a software subscription) do not need a fresh purchase order every month. What protects you there is the contract, and a monthly check that the amount has not changed.
AccountingTools also mentions moving some purchases to procurement cards. For small, frequent purchases by field teams, a company card with a limit and monthly statement review can replace a pile of tiny invoices.
How this works in Achekam
In Achekam, a business records supplier bills line by line with VAT. A bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts, so small and recurring invoices can skip the order and the match but still need a person to say yes. Once approved, a bill can be paid in full or in parts from a chosen bank account. That keeps the approval step without forcing the full three-document match.
Price and quantity tolerances, and who may accept them
The third idea from AccountingTools is a tolerance: letting payables staff approve invoices whose prices and quantities are within a few percent of the purchase order. Near-matches happen constantly in a provider's buying, from rounding on imported equipment to a supplier delivering a full carton instead of the exact number ordered.
If you adopt a tolerance, write the rule down:
- The size of the tolerance, for price and for quantity separately, decided by the finance manager rather than whoever is processing the invoice.
- Who may accept a difference inside it, and who must approve anything outside it.
- Which suppliers or items it never applies to, such as high-value network equipment, where every unit and every cent should match.
- How each acceptance is recorded, so an auditor or reviewer can see the pattern later.
What Achekam does with a mismatch today
Achekam does not apply a tolerance automatically. A supplier invoice recorded against a purchase order is matched with what was ordered and what arrived, and if the price or quantity differs, by any amount, it is held until someone writes a resolution note. Deliveries are recorded against the order line by line, including part deliveries, with a goods-received record kept.
That means your tolerance rule is applied by a person: for a difference inside your agreed tolerance, the resolution note records that it was accepted under the policy and by whom; for a larger one, it records the credit note requested or the conversation with the supplier. Once the invoice is matched and posted, it goes to the ledger as expense, input VAT and trade payables, and the supplier's invoice number stops the same invoice being posted twice.
Make the resolution note specific: "Price variance within policy tolerance, accepted by" and a name is useful; "OK" is not.
Keeping committed spend visible against the budget
Lighter matching should not mean less visibility. In Achekam, approved purchase orders count as committed spend against budgets per expense account and period, and the screen shows budget, spent, committed and available for each line, flagging over-committed lines without blocking a purchase.
For a provider, that answers the question that matters before you accept a near-match or approve another order: how much of this month's network spares budget is already promised? Review it alongside the payables queue each week. For equipment that moves out to installers once it arrives, tracking equipment on installer vans picks up the trail, and two-way or three-way matching explains when the lighter check is enough.
Before you change the policy
List last quarter's held invoices and sort them into three piles: small-value, recurring and near-match. The size of each pile tells you which of the three changes will free up the most time, and which suppliers you need to tell before you make it.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
