The task
An invoice can agree with the purchase order and still bill for goods that have not arrived. Configure an agent to compare all three records, apply your tolerances and explain the lines that need attention. The result is a review queue with source references, ready for an accounts payable specialist to assess.
What you provide
Supplier invoice
Invoice INV-014 bills ten monitor arms at $80 each, with the supplier, currency and purchase-order reference visible.
Purchase order
PO-218 authorizes ten monitor arms at $80 each. Provide your rules for price, quantity, freight and tax differences.
Goods receipt
Receipt GR-055 records eight monitor arms delivered. Include partial deliveries and later receipts when available.
Give the agent a clear brief
Use these instructions as a starting point, alongside your approved sources and permissions.
Compare each invoice line with its purchase order and goods receipt. Match supplier, currency, item, quantity and unit price. Use only the supplied tolerance rules. Cite the source record for every result. Flag missing records and ambiguous item matches separately. Return a table of exceptions and questions for the AP reviewer. Do not approve invoices, post to a ledger or initiate payments.
How the work comes together
Read and normalize the records
Extract invoice headers and line items, then associate them with the referenced order and receipt. Preserve document and page references. If a scan is unreadable or an item identifier is ambiguous, leave it for review rather than guessing.
Check the agreement
Compare quantities, unit prices, currencies and any configured tolerances. Treat missing receipt evidence differently from a confirmed mismatch. Separate freight or tax lines when the supplied rules do not cover them.
Prepare the exception queue
Write the differences and supporting sources into a structured table. AP can inspect each flagged line and request more evidence before using its existing approval and payment process.
Illustrative example · fictional data
An invoice that needs one more check
INV-014 and PO-218 agree on price. GR-055 records a partial delivery. This example uses a zero-tolerance quantity rule.
| Check | Evidence | Review result |
|---|---|---|
| Unit price | INV-014: $80 · PO-218: $80 | Matches |
| Quantity received | INV-014: 10 · GR-055: 8 | 2 units not evidenced |
| Amount for review | 2 units × $80 | $160 before tax |
The $160 is an exception to investigate, not a payment adjustment. A later receipt may account for the difference.
The human review
An AP specialist confirms the match, checks later deliveries and decides how to resolve the exception. Approval, ledger posting and payment remain in your existing finance process.
Set it up for your team
Agree on matching rules
Provide supplier identifiers, tolerances, partial-delivery rules and examples of previously resolved exceptions.
Connect the evidence
Start with an approved document set. ERP or procurement-system access requires a supported integration or a configured API/MCP connection with appropriate permissions.
Choose the review destination
Define the output table, responsible AP reviewer and the identifiers needed to find each original transaction.
Check the result before scaling
Use a reviewed batch containing clean matches, partial receipts, duplicates and poor scans. Measure extraction errors, missed exceptions, false flags and reviewer time. Establish a baseline before claiming savings.
Keep the data in the right place
Invoices reveal supplier pricing, banking details and purchasing activity. A fully local deployment can keep document processing and inference inside your network. External ERP connections or hosted models need their own explicit data-access configuration.
Explore deployment optionsQuestions & answers
What is three-way invoice matching?
It compares a supplier invoice with the purchase order and goods receipt to check that the billed items, prices and quantities agree with what was ordered and received.
Can this playbook handle scanned invoices?
Scanned documents can be processed through OCR. Validate extraction on your own layouts and scan quality, and route unreadable fields or uncertain matches to a person.
Will the agent pay invoices automatically?
No. This playbook prepares a matching and exception report. It does not approve payment, release funds or post transactions to your ledger.