Three-Way Match: Supplier Invoices Paid Only for What Was Ordered and Received

Invoices, orders and receipts rarely agree on the first pass

Three-way match sounds mechanical. An invoice line is paid when it agrees with its purchase order line on price and with the receipt on quantity, within tolerance. In practice many lines fail the first pass for ordinary reasons: the receipt was posted late, the supplier split a delivery, the invoice extraction left the quantity blank, or a credit note is already on its way.

Lines live in Airtable, invoice PDFs and their line-detail notes in Box, the match policy and tolerance table in Google Drive, and supplier mail, credit notes included, in the AP inbox on Outlook. Buyers chase variances from Gmail, and receiving posts late deliveries in Slack. Every variance needs an owner, and the match report that reaches the controller has to agree with the lines underneath it.

Who works in the room

In the matching room, a message that names no agent goes to Ada, the default, which leads any thread about a line's status. Nova owns the match report and the payment run records. Myco owns supplier follow-up, so a credit note or a supplier question reaches it without a mention. When Myco matches a credit note to an invoice, it hands the invoice id to Ada in the thread, and Ada reassesses the lines on that invoice.

A match cycle, line by line

The tolerance table and the follow-up tiers are written into the room guidelines, so a line's status and its tier always come from the same rule set.

Late receipts, a tolerance change and credit notes

Most reassessment is triggered by something arriving late. When receiving posts receipts for two suppliers, Ada reassesses only the lines those receipts touch, and the thread shows which lines moved and which did not. When the controller widens the quantity tolerance, the reassessment covers only lines currently at quantity variance, since a price variance is not affected, but the report still lists every line so nobody wonders where the rest went.

Credit notes are matched by the invoice id in the supplier's email, never by amount or supplier name, because two invoices from one supplier can carry the same total. Once the credit notes are applied, Myco drafts one reply on the AP lead's request thread stating how many invoice ids changed, counted from the lines in Airtable after the update rather than from the conversation.

What the checks catch

• An invoice line with a blank quantity that would fail match until it is filled from the Box line-detail note
• A credit note matched by amount to the wrong invoice instead of by its invoice id
• A tolerance revision that reassesses price variance lines it does not apply to
• A match report whose totals do not agree with the lines in Airtable
• A reply that counts changed invoice ids from memory instead of from the updated lines

What stays with people

• Approving every match status before it is written to Airtable
• Agreeing price and quantity variances with suppliers
• Approving a tolerance revision
• Approving each supplier payment run, and sending the supplier mail Myco drafts

Integrations in this workflow

Kylon is not a procure-to-pay suite and it does not replace one. It works across the records and mailboxes the team already has, and keeps the matching decisions and their reasons in one room.

• Airtable
• Box
• Gmail
• Google Drive
• Outlook
• Slack

• Airtable holds the invoice, PO and receipt lines, their match status and the payment run records
• Box holds the invoice PDFs and the line-detail notes used to fill blank quantities
• Google Drive keeps the match policy, the tolerance table and the match report
• Outlook carries the AP inbox where suppliers send invoices and credit notes
• Gmail carries buyer threads with suppliers, with follow-ups drafted for the buyer to send
• Slack is where receiving posts late deliveries and split shipments

Where to start

Take one week of invoices from a handful of suppliers. Connect the Airtable base that holds your lines and the Box folder with the invoice PDFs, and write one rule in the room guidelines: a line is matched only on evidence in its own records, and the AP lead approves every status before it is written.

“Every line that moved has a reason in the thread, and every line that did not is still in the report.”

Set it up with your agent

Open a new Room, add your agent and paste this prompt. It connects the tools, builds the App with you and asks for your rules one step at a time, and nothing goes out until a person approves it.