Price rises nobody notices
A supplier adds a few percent without saying so. On a product ordered every week, it takes months to spot, by which time it is too late to argue.
Supplier invoice management
Managing supplier invoices without losing your evenings
Receive, check, approve, file, pay, find again. Six gestures repeated on every invoice, which nobody enjoys and everybody ends up doing badly. Here is how the process holds together when it is organised, and where a tool genuinely helps.
What loose handling costs
Rarely a visible disaster. More often a set of small leaks nobody measures.
Billing errors paid in full
More billed than delivered, a line charged twice, a discount forgotten, a credit note never deducted. Those are euros, not principles.
Time spent searching
Finding the invoice for a job six months later, or the document the accountant is asking for, occupies more people than anyone admits.
Agreed prices not applied
A discount obtained in January is not always the one billed in March. Without line by line checking, the negotiation was pointless.
The six stages, and what unblocks them
Each stage has its usual sticking point. Naming them shows where the time actually goes.
1 Receive
Invoices arrive by email, by hand on site, or in a mailbox nobody empties.
One dedicated address suppliers and staff send everything to, and a phone photo that counts as a deposit.
2 Read
Someone retypes the supplier, the date, the amounts, sometimes the lines.
The data comes out of the document on its own, down to line level.
3 Check
The stage you skip when you are in a hurry, which is always.
Gaps against the previous price and the agreed price are flagged, not hunted.
4 Approve
The go-ahead sits on a desk or in a conversation.
Approval happens on screen, with the original document beside it.
5 File
One folder per month, or worse, a mailbox.
Everything archived and searchable in full text: a reference, a note number, a site name.
6 Use
The figures stay inside the documents and never serve anything.
Average prices, trends, supplier comparison, and export to accounting.
Choosing a tool without regret
Four questions to ask any vendor, ourselves included.
Does it go down to the lines?
Many tools stop at the header and the total. Without line detail, no price control is possible.
Is a template needed per supplier?
If so, the real cost is not the subscription, it is the setup time for every new supplier.
What happens when it gets it wrong?
The right answer is not “it never does”. It is making the mistake visible and quick to fix.
Where is the data, and how do you get it back?
Hosting, encryption, and above all export: your invoices should leave as easily as they came in.
Frequently asked questions
From how many invoices a month is it worth it?
It is less about volume than repetition: as soon as the same product comes back from the same supplier, price tracking pays. Thirty documents a month is plenty to see it.
Do we need an in-house accountant?
No. Most of our users work with an outside firm, which receives clean data instead of a pile of PDFs.
Can we keep our current setup?
Yes. Nothing forces your suppliers to change anything, and exports keep feeding the accounting software you already use.
What if several people handle invoices?
Roles and sites are supported, everyone sees what concerns them, and one person's corrections serve everyone's imports.
The best test is your own current month
Import the invoices you have already received; the prices appear straight away.