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Delivery notes and 3 way match

Delivery notes and 3-way matching on Purchase Orders

Track deliveries against your Purchase Orders (POs) and let Spendesk automatically match invoices, deliveries, and orders at line-item level.

For: Requesters and Controllers using the Purchase Orders feature.

Table of Contents

  • Before you start

  • What are delivery notes?

  • Tracking a delivery on a PO

  • Delivery statuses

  • What is 3-way matching?

  • How advanced 3-way matching works

  • Reviewing discrepancies as Finance

  • Troubleshooting

  • Related articles

Before you start

Requirement

Detail

Feature

Purchase Orders (POs) must be enabled on your account

Roles

Any user with access to a PO can update its delivery status; Controllers review invoice-matching alerts

Plan

Available to all customers using Purchase Orders

Default setting

Advanced 3-way matching is enabled by default — no setup needed

👥 Only users with access to a Purchase Order (as Requester, Approver, or Controller) can update its delivery status.

What are delivery notes?

Delivery notes let you track whether goods or services ordered through a Purchase Order have been received. You indicate whether a delivery is expected when you create the PO, and you can update this later.

  1. Navigate to New request > Make a purchase request > Request a Purchase Order

  2. Toggle Is a delivery expected to track deliveries for this order

  3. Click Confirm my request to submit the PO for approval

💡 You can change the delivery expectation on a PO after it's approved if your needs change.

Tracking a delivery on a PO

Once a Purchase Order is approved, any user with access to it can record what has been received.

  1. Open the Purchase Order from Expenditures > Purchase Orders

  2. Click Add delivery note in the delivery tracking section on the PO

  3. Enter the received quantity for each line item (if the PO has line items) or enter a received amount against the total (if the PO has no line items)

  4. Save your update

Delivery statuses

Status

Meaning

Delivery not expected

Delivery was marked as not expected when the PO was created (or retroactively)

Waiting delivery

No delivery note has been attached to the PO

Partially delivered

Part of the line items or of the total amount has been delivered

Fully delivered

The entire order has been delivered

⚠️ You cannot currently mark a PO as "overdelivered" (delivered beyond the initial order).

Activate or deactivate delivery tracking

Only Account Owners can manage delivery tracking settings.

  1. Go to Settings > Company Rules.

  2. Open the Payment methods tab.

  3. Find Delivery notes.

  4. Turn the toggle on to activate delivery tracking, or off to deactivate it.

When delivery tracking is enabled, users can indicate whether a delivery is expected when creating a Purchase Order and record deliveries by adding delivery notes. Purchase Orders must also be enabled for this feature to be used.

What is 3-way matching?

3-way matching compares three documents to confirm an invoice is legitimate before payment:

  1. The Purchase Order (PO) — the initial order placed

  2. The Delivery Note — confirmation of goods or services received

  3. The Invoice — the supplier's billing document

This ensures the invoice matches both what was ordered and what was actually delivered.

How advanced 3-way matching works

Spendesk performs matching automatically at line-item level for all customers using Purchase Orders. It compares PO lines, delivery lines, and invoice lines — not just totals — to detect:

  • Line items billed but never ordered

  • Line items billed but not delivered

  • Overbilled purchase lines

  • Delivered items that haven't been invoiced

  1. Submit an invoice linked to a PO that has line items

  2. Spendesk automatically matches invoice lines via OCR during submission

  3. Refine or correct the match during the Submission or Review stage if needed

📋 If a submitted invoice is linked to a PO that contains line items, adding line items to the invoice is required.

🔒 If the linked PO has no line items, or if the invoice has no linked PO, Spendesk falls back to matching on total invoice amount instead of line-item matching.

Reviewing discrepancies as Finance

When reviewing an invoice linked to a PO, Controllers see an alert if the 3-way match finds a discrepancy.

  1. Open the invoice in the invoice review interface

  2. Read the alert message describing the discrepancy between the PO, delivery, and invoice

  3. Click the alert to open a detailed view (available when the PO has line items)

  4. Resolve the discrepancy before approving the invoice for payment

Troubleshooting

Symptom: I can't add line items to my invoice.
​Cause: The Purchase Order linked to this invoice has no line items.
​Resolution: Line items can only be added to an invoice when the linked PO also has line items. Add line items to the PO first, or submit the invoice without a PO link.

Symptom: My PO shows as "Not delivered" even though I received the goods.
​Cause: No delivery note has been recorded yet on this PO.
​Resolution: Open the PO from Commitments > Purchase Orders and record the received quantities or amount, as described in Tracking a delivery on a PO.

Symptom: An invoice shows a discrepancy alert I don't understand.
​Cause: The invoice, delivery, or PO line items don't fully match (for example, a line was billed but not delivered).
​Resolution: Click the alert in the invoice review interface to open the detailed view and compare the PO, delivery, and invoice line by line.

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