Which console your supplier's invoice is in

Lesson 6 of 7 in Reconcile supplier e-invoices against your purchase documents · about 12 minutes · for the whole-system operator — you run the books.

Play this lesson as slides — one slide per step, with the same narration. The full text of every step is on this page.

This lesson is for you if you run the books at GadgetSphere and you have noticed that BigLedger appears to reconcile supplier invoices in two different places. It does. They are separate consoles, on separate tables, matching on different keys, and neither knows the other exists. About twelve minutes. You will be able to say which one a given supplier’s document is in, what each needs from you, what each one cannot answer, and how to run both without doing either badly.

Step 1 — Know that there are two, and that they never meet

After this step you will stop expecting one screen to explain the other. The reconciliation you have worked through so far lives in the My E-Invoice Admin Applet and asks a tax question: does this purchase have a supplier e-invoice behind it. The second is the AP Automation applet — accounts payable — and it asks a different question: does this supplier’s invoice line up with what we ordered, what they delivered and what we received. Different applet, different tables, different key. A document paired in one is not paired in the other and nothing synchronises them. What they do have in common is that neither posts anything: in AP Automation too, the liability is still booked by a purchase invoice raised elsewhere.

Reference: AP Automation Applet — Overview

Step 2 — Name the key each one matches on

After this step you can predict which console will find a pair. The Admin applet reconciliation pairs only when four values agree exactly: supplier identity number, reference number, amount and document date. AP Automation does something quite different. It compares the supplier name on the e-invoice with the supplier name on your own goods received note — abbreviated GRN throughout that applet — allowing them to be merely similar rather than identical, and then matches the delivery-order number printed on the supplier’s invoice against the delivery-order number you keyed onto that note. Names roughly, delivery-order numbers precisely. That is the whole of it, and it is why the two consoles succeed and fail on completely different documents.

Reference: AP Automation Applet — Before you can use it

Step 3 — Know what feeds it, and which feed you control

After this step you can get a supplier’s invoice into AP Automation today. Two things reach it: supplier e-invoice PDFs read by optical character recognition, usually shortened to OCR, and documents received over Peppol. The PDF route has two doors. One is an e-mail channel that sits outside this applet entirely, which is a support conversation rather than a setting you will find. The other is yours: on the OCR E-invoice screen, Create opens an upload panel that takes one PDF at a time and queues it for reading. So when a distributor e-mails you a validated e-invoice, you can put it into the reconciliation yourself in about ten seconds, without waiting for any channel to be configured.

Screen: AP Automation, OCR E-invoice listing with the Create button and the Upload E-invoice drag-and-drop panel

Reference: AP Automation Applet — OCR E-invoice

Step 4 — Know what it can never match

After this step you will not chase four categories of document that will never pair. A supplier invoice carrying no delivery-order number at all can never match, so a supplier who bills against the purchase-order number only will sit unmatched for ever. Only invoices are matched: credit notes, debit notes and refund notes are listed for you to read, and never matched or valued. If two of your goods-receipt rows share the same delivery-order number and a similar supplier name, the run cannot choose between them and leaves the row alone. And the value check has no tolerance whatever — a five sen difference between the invoice total and the summed receipts leaves the value unmatched, which is expected rather than broken.

Reference: AP Automation Applet — Lifecycle and effects

Step 5 — Do the one thing that makes it work

After this step your goods receipts will actually match. The matching key is the supplier’s own delivery-order number, and it has to be on your goods received note in the third client document field. That field is keyed by whoever receives the goods, usually at a branch, usually in a hurry. If it is blank, or if somebody typed your own reference instead of the supplier’s, nothing on that delivery will ever match no matter how correct the invoice is. The fix is not technical: key the supplier’s delivery-order number as printed, and the queued invoice is retried on the next run without anybody re-uploading anything. Make that one habit stick at the receiving bay and this console starts working by itself.

Reference: AP Automation Applet — Troubleshooting

Step 6 — Choose the console your month actually runs on

After this step you will stop looking for one console to do both jobs. Neither replaces the other. AP Automation answers whether a supplier’s invoice agrees with what you received; it never reads or creates the purchase invoice that books the liability, so it cannot tell you that every purchase in your books has a supplier e-invoice behind it — which is the question lesson one said this whole course was for. Only the Admin queue plus your own hand check answers that. So use AP Automation where your branches genuinely key the supplier’s delivery-order number, and keep the Admin queue as the coverage check regardless. One more limit worth knowing: once a row’s payment status is saved as paid, the control is disabled and there is no un-pay.

Screen: AP Automation, B2B vs E-invoice Summary, each e-invoice row beside its matched goods-receipt lines with the amount difference and matching status columns

Reference: AP Automation Applet — Screens and menus

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Know that there are two, and that they never meet"]
  s2["Step 2 — Name the key each one matches on"]
  s3["Step 3 — Know what feeds it, and which feed you control"]
  s4["Step 4 — Know what it can never match"]
  s5["Step 5 — Do the one thing that makes it work"]
  s6["Step 6 — Choose the console your month actually runs on"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

1. What does AP Automation match a supplier's invoice against? Your purchase document, on four exactly equal values
Your goods receipts, on a similar supplier name and the delivery-order number
The e-invoices the board holds with your company as buyer

2. A supplier's e-invoice carries a purchase-order number but no delivery-order number. What happens in AP Automation? It can never match — the delivery-order number is the key
It matches on the purchase-order number instead
It matches once the goods received note is finalised

3. A distributor e-mails you a validated e-invoice PDF and no channel is configured. What can you do today? Upload it yourself on OCR E-invoice with Create, one PDF at a time
Forward it to the matching queue from the Admin applet
Key its values onto the OCR record by hand

4. The document matched but the value did not, with a difference of five sen. What is the correct reading? The matcher failed and should be re-run
Expected — there is no tolerance on the value comparison
The goods received note was keyed with the wrong amount

5. You mark an AP Automation row as paid. What happens, and what can you undo? Nothing posts anywhere, and the control is then disabled — there is no un-pay
The supplier balance is cleared, and you reverse it by setting the row back to pending
A payment voucher is created automatically and can be voided

Answer key

Your goods receipts, on a similar supplier name and the delivery-order number — AP Automation Applet — Before you can use it
It can never match — the delivery-order number is the key — AP Automation Applet — Lifecycle and effects
Upload it yourself on OCR E-invoice with Create, one PDF at a time — AP Automation Applet — OCR E-invoice
Expected — there is no tolerance on the value comparison — AP Automation Applet — Lifecycle and effects
Nothing posts anywhere, and the control is then disabled — there is no un-pay — AP Automation Applet — Fields

This is a self-check. Your answers are marked in your browser and stay there — nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is recorded, and the marking is readable in the page source, so it is not a credential. Open the answer key at any time.

Next lesson: What runs for you, and what month-end can prove · Back to the course

Last updated on September 16, 2026

Check the rest yourself, and clear the list — slides Which console your supplier's invoice is in — slides