Three-way matching: pay only for what you received
Comparing the invoice with the purchase order and the delivery is the simplest way to stop paying for goods that never arrived.
The gap between billed and received
Suppliers bill for what they intend to deliver. Deliveries sometimes fall short. If nobody compares the invoice with what was actually received, the difference is paid anyway.
Three-way matching closes that gap by checking three documents against each other: the order, the delivery record and the invoice.
What a block should tell finance
When the numbers differ, payment should be held, and finance should see why. For example, an invoice that bills 60 units against a delivery of 25 leaves 35 units unaccounted for.
A clear reason saves a round of emails between finance, operations and the supplier.
Paying the part that matches
Some invoices are partly right. Showing the matched amount separately from the blocked amount lets you pay for what you received while the rest is resolved.