It’s month-end in Perth. A batch of supplier bills is stuck waiting for approval, an approver can’t see what they should, and payments are due tomorrow. You open a support ticket at 10am.

If your software vendor is based in California, it’s around 7pm the evening before. The team has gone home. You’ll probably get a reply overnight, and if that reply asks a follow-up question, you’re looking at another full day before anything is fixed.

Every accounts payable team has to answer one question before paying a supplier: should we pay this bill, and for this amount?

Invoice matching is how you answer it. Instead of trusting the invoice on its own, you compare it against other records of what was agreed and what actually happened. The two most common methods are 2-way and 3-way matching.

What is 2-way matching?

2-way matching compares two documents: