When goods arrive at a warehouse, someone has to check them against what was ordered. Quantities, product codes, prices and delivery notes are compared, discrepancies are recorded and suppliers are chased. In busy operations this becomes a daily backlog.
Purchase order matching automation handles the routine comparisons and leaves people to deal with the genuine discrepancies.
What the process involves
Matching usually compares three sources: the purchase order, the delivery note or goods received record, and eventually the supplier invoice. When all three agree within tolerances, the order can progress without intervention.
When they disagree, someone needs to decide what happened: a short delivery, a substitution, a price change or a data entry error.
Get the data in consistently
Automation depends on reliable data. Delivery notes arrive as paper, email attachments or supplier portal entries, and each needs converting into structured records.
Scanning at the point of receipt, whether through barcodes or document extraction, reduces manual entry and speeds up the whole process.
The matching logic is the easy part. The real work is getting delivery data into the system quickly and accurately enough to match against.
David Kwon, Head of Automation, Engineered With AI
Handle product codes carefully
Suppliers often use their own product codes, which do not match your internal ones. A maintained cross-reference table, updated whenever a new mismatch appears, is essential.
AI can help suggest likely matches for unfamiliar codes based on descriptions, but a person should confirm new mappings before they are relied upon.
Set sensible tolerances
Exact matching is rarely practical. Small variations in quantity or price may be acceptable, and agreeing tolerances in advance lets the system approve routine differences automatically.
Tolerances should reflect the value and risk of the goods. Tighter limits suit expensive items; looser limits may be fine for low-value consumables.
Route exceptions to the right person
When a mismatch occurs, the system should explain what does not match and send it to someone who can resolve it. Shortages might go to purchasing, damaged goods to the receiving team, and price differences to finance.
Clear routing prevents exceptions from sitting unresolved in a shared queue.
Record discrepancies for supplier review
Every discrepancy is information about supplier performance. Tracking short deliveries, errors and late arrivals gives purchasing teams evidence for conversations with suppliers.
Over time, this data can improve supplier selection and reduce future exceptions.
Connect to stock and finance
Matched receipts should update stock levels promptly, so available inventory is accurate. They should also feed invoice matching, so suppliers are paid for what was actually received.
The finance side of this is covered in automating invoice processing.
Keep people in control of decisions
Automation should propose outcomes, not make commercial decisions. Accepting substitutions, agreeing credits and changing supplier terms remain human decisions.
The system saves time by preparing these decisions with the relevant information already assembled.
Start with high-volume suppliers
Begin with suppliers who deliver frequently and send consistent paperwork. Proving the process there builds confidence before expanding to more complex suppliers.
Running the automated and manual processes side by side briefly helps catch problems early.
Measure the results
Useful measures include the percentage of receipts matched automatically, the time from delivery to stock update, the number of open discrepancies and how long they take to resolve.
Improvements in these figures usually translate into more accurate stock, fewer payment disputes and a lighter workload for the receiving team.
Deal with partial deliveries
Suppliers frequently deliver an order in several shipments. The matching process needs to track what has arrived against the full order, keep the remainder open, and avoid treating each partial delivery as a discrepancy.
Getting this right prevents two common problems: orders closed early while goods are still due, and orders left open indefinitely after the final shipment has quietly arrived. A clear rule for when an order is considered complete, and an alert for orders that have been partially received for too long, keeps the backlog under control.
Returns and damaged goods
Goods that arrive damaged, or are later returned to the supplier, need their own path through the process. Recording the reason, the quantity and any photographs at the point of receipt makes credit claims straightforward and keeps stock figures honest.
Receiving team buried in paperwork?
We will design a matching process that clears the routine and flags the real problems.
