Field notes · 2025-10-08

Automating the three-way match

The chore nobody defends

Every dealership and supply house runs some version of the three-way match: does the purchase order agree with the packing slip, and does the invoice agree with both. It is pure comparison work. Nobody claims it requires judgment, yet in most operations a person spends hours a week doing it, and the errors that slip through cost real money.

Comparison at volume is machine work. This is one of the clearest automation candidates in the building.

How the automated version runs

The pieces arrive the way they already arrive: the PO from your system, the packing slip as a photo from receiving, the invoice as an email attachment. The automation reads all three, lines them up item by item, and sorts the result into two piles.

The clean matches get logged and move on to payment with no human touch. The exceptions, a quantity short, a price that crept, an item nobody ordered, get surfaced with the three documents side by side so a person can rule in seconds instead of digging for minutes.

Where the money is

The hours saved are the visible win. The quieter win is the exceptions you start catching:

  • Price increases that never got agreed to, caught the week they start
  • Short shipments that used to get paid in full
  • Duplicate invoices that arrive two months apart and used to both get paid

The person stays

The goal is not removing the human from payables. It is pointing their attention only at the documents that disagree, which is the part that was always worth their time. The rest is filing, and filing is done. More dealer-specific patterns on the equipment dealer page.

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