Guide
Invoice approval checklist: the 15 checks before you approve
Before approving a customer invoice, check that it names a customer you have, quotes an order on that customer’s account, invoices the products, quantities and prices on that order, totals what the order says, agrees with the payments actually received, is dated sensibly, and has not been seen before. 15 checks in all; 4 of them stop an approval outright, and any check you could not make counts as not done, never as passed.
The checklist
In the order to make them: there is no point comparing prices with an order until you know it is the right order. “Passes when” is the tolerance a new checafatura account starts with.
Customer is identified
The invoice must be traceable to a customer on record. Passes when: must be true. If it fails: Do not approve.
Catches: An invoice addressed to nobody you sell to: a typo in the name, a new trading name, or an invoice sent to the wrong place.
When it fails: Do not approve. Find the customer by account or tax number; if they genuinely are new, create the record first and check again.
Customer match is certain enough
A name-only or approximate customer match goes to a human. Passes when: at least 95%. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: A customer matched on a name alone, or on a name that is only close — the case where two customers could plausibly be the same.
When it fails: Confirm the customer by account or tax number before going further. Ask for it to be quoted on the next invoice.
Invoice references a valid order
There must be an order on record that this invoice belongs to. Passes when: must be true. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: An invoice with no order behind it, or quoting an order number that does not exist.
When it fails: Ask which order it belongs to. Without one there is nothing to compare products, prices or the total against.
Order is on the customer’s account
An invoice quoting another customer’s order is never approved automatically. Passes when: must be true. If it fails: Do not approve.
Catches: An invoice quoting a real order that is on another customer’s account.
When it fails: Do not approve. Either the order number is wrong or the customer is; find out which before anything else.
Products are on the order
Every product line on the invoice should appear on the order. Passes when: at least 100%. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: A product on the invoice that was never ordered — a substitution, an extra, or a line copied from another invoice.
When it fails: Ask whether the substitution was agreed. If it was, amend the order; if not, ask for a corrected invoice.
Quantities match the order
Units invoiced should be units ordered. Passes when: at most 0. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: More or fewer units invoiced than were ordered, including a part delivery invoiced as complete.
When it fails: Compare with what was actually delivered. Approve only what was ordered and received; ask for a credit note or a corrected invoice for the rest.
Unit prices are the agreed prices
A cent of rounding is tolerated; anything more is not. Passes when: at most 0.01. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: A unit price that is not the agreed one: an old price list, a discount left off, a price rise not agreed.
When it fails: Check the price agreed for this order. A rounding cent is tolerated; anything more needs a corrected invoice or a written agreement.
Invoice total is the amount expected
Within one euro. More than that, a person looks at it. Passes when: at most 1.00. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: A total that is not what the order says it should be, for any reason — the check that catches what the line checks miss.
When it fails: Find the line that explains the difference. If none does, the arithmetic or a charge not on the order is the cause.
Invoice adds up
Subtotal plus tax should equal the stated total. Passes when: at most 0.02. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: An invoice whose own subtotal and tax do not add up to its total.
When it fails: Ask for a corrected invoice. An invoice that disagrees with itself cannot be paid with confidence whichever figure is right.
Amount paid matches what we received
The invoice’s paid figure against the payments on record. Passes when: at most 1.00. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: An invoice marked as paid when the money received says otherwise: a partial payment, an overpayment, or no payment at all.
When it fails: Compare with the payments actually received. Record the balance outstanding, or the overpayment to refund or credit.
Invoice date is within the expected window
An invoice more than 60 days after the order is worth a look. Passes when: at most 60 days. If it fails: A warning only.
Catches: An invoice raised long after the order — a late bill, or one raised against the wrong, older order.
When it fails: Worth a look rather than a stop. Confirm the order is the right one and that it has not already been invoiced.
Invoice is not dated in the future
A future date is either a typo or something worse. Passes when: must be false. If it fails: Do not approve.
Catches: An invoice dated after today: a typing mistake, or a document prepared ahead of time.
When it fails: Do not approve. Ask for the invoice to be reissued with the right date.
Invoice has not already been processed
Same number, same total, seen before. Passes when: must be false. If it fails: Do not approve.
Catches: The same invoice — same number, same total — arriving a second time, by email and post, or resent after a reminder.
When it fails: Do not approve. Find the earlier one and what was decided about it; approving the copy pays twice.
Currency is the customer’s currency
An invoice in an unexpected currency is not a rounding problem. Passes when: must be true. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: An invoice in a currency the customer does not trade in with you, which no tolerance on the total can account for.
When it fails: Ask for the invoice in the agreed currency. Do not convert it yourself and approve the result.
The document was fully read
A partially-read invoice is reviewed by a person, never approved on its own. Passes when: must be true. If it fails: A person looks.
Catches: A document that could not be read in full — a figure missing, a scan with no text — so some checks above had nothing to look at.
When it fails: A person reads the document and types in what was missed. Until then the checks that depended on it have not run.
The rule underneath all of them
A check that could not be made is not a check that passed. If there are no payments on record, the payment check has not run; if the invoice has no subtotal, nobody has confirmed it adds up. Write “not checked” beside it, and if it is a check that matters, send the invoice to someone who can make it rather than approving around the gap.
The free checker runs every check above except two it cannot make honestly in a browser, and says so rather than passing them:
- Invoice has not already been processed. This page keeps no record of earlier invoices, so a repeat cannot be recognised. In an account it runs on every invoice.
- The document was fully read. You typed the figures in, so there was no document to read. In an account a PDF is read and this says what could not be.
Further reading
- Invoice reconciliation CSV starter pack — linked records and two invoices to check.
- Invoice doesn’t match the purchase order: the common discrepancies, and what to do — The five differences between an invoice and its order that come up most, and how to handle each.
- Two-way and three-way invoice matching, explained with examples — What each kind of match compares, with a worked example of each, and the one rule that keeps them honest.
- How checafatura decides — the five steps from an invoice arriving to a recommendation.
Run these checks on every invoice, against your own records
An account imports your customers, orders and payments from CSV or Excel, reads PDF invoices, runs every check above with tolerances you set, and keeps each decision in an audit log that cannot be edited.