Month-end accounts payable checklist for vendor-heavy businesses

Phase 1: collect everything that arrived

Before you can reconcile anything, every invoice from the month has to be in one place. The emailed ones aren’t the problem. The paper ones are.

• Pull invoices from the AP inbox and from any personal inbox vendors still email.
• Empty the trucks. Counter tickets from the parts store and the supply house ride around in the cab until someone asks.
• Check the mail pile and the front desk. The produce distributor’s driver leaves a ticket with whoever signs at the back door.
• Ask each tech or crew lead if they picked anything up that hasn’t been turned in.
• Photograph or scan handwritten tickets while they’re still legible.
• Sort by vendor, not by date. You’ll reconcile one vendor at a time.

Phase 2: reconcile each vendor statement

A statement is the vendor’s claim of what you owe. Your invoices are your record of what you received. Reconciling is the line-by-line comparison between the two. Do it one vendor at a time, and don’t start the next one until this one is finished or parked with a written note.

• Confirm the statement period. A line dated in the prior month is either an unpaid item still open from last statement or an invoice the vendor posted late. Check last month’s reconciliation before treating it as new.
• Match each statement line to an invoice by number and amount.
• Mark every line with no invoice behind it.
• Mark every invoice you hold that isn’t on the statement.
• Mark every line where the two amounts disagree.
• Look for credits. If you returned a compressor and were promised a credit memo, check that it actually appears.
• Total what you’ve confirmed. That’s the number you’re allowed to pay. The statement total is not.

Phase 3: resolve exceptions before you pay anything

Every mismatch falls into a few buckets. Handle each one the same way every month and they stop being a crisis.

• No invoice for the line: ask the vendor for a copy. Don’t pay it on the statement alone.
• Amounts differ: pull both documents. Typical causes: a restocking fee, a price change, a partial return, or freight, tax or a surcharge added at billing.
• Same ticket number on the statement twice: pay it once, and ask the rep to reverse the duplicate so it does not carry forward as unpaid next month.
• Invoice you hold isn’t on the statement: keep holding it. It will usually post to next month’s statement. If it never shows, it was likely posted to a different account or branch, so ask the rep.
• Promised credit not showing: call the rep with the return ticket number. Don’t deduct it yourself without telling them.
• Multiple branches: a supply house with three locations may bill from each one. A property manager paying one plumber across six buildings may get one statement per property account. Make sure you have every statement before you start.
• Write every dispute down in one place: vendor, line, amount, who you talked to, date.

Phase 4: approve and schedule payment

Approval is a decision by a person who knows the business, not a stamp. The owner or manager should see what’s being paid and what’s being held back, and why.

• Present each vendor as three numbers: confirmed, disputed, held.
• Approve only the confirmed number.
• Check the remit-to address and bank details on every invoice and on the statement against last month’s. A changed remit-to is a phone call to a number you already have, never a reply to the email.
• Schedule payment by the vendor’s terms (on the invoice or account agreement), not the date you finished reconciling.
• Note early-pay discounts and decide whether they’re worth taking this month.
• Send the vendor a remittance that lists which invoices you paid, which you’re holding, and why.

Phase 5: file it for the accountant

Your accountant needs to answer one question later: why did you pay this vendor this amount in this month? Everything you keep should answer that.

• Keep the statement, every matched invoice, every credit memo, and your reconciliation with the exceptions marked.
• Keep the remittance you sent.
• Keep the dispute log, including the ones that resolved.
• Keep the counter tickets. A handwritten ticket is often the only proof the shop received the part.
• File by vendor and month, so one folder tells the whole story.
• Give the accountant read access to the folder instead of emailing files one at a time.

Phase 6: review recurring problems by vendor

This is the step that gets skipped. Look back at the dispute log and ask which vendors keep showing up.

• Which vendor had the most lines with no invoice? Ask them to email the invoice at the time of sale.
• Which vendor’s prices moved? Compare the unit price on a part you buy every month to what you paid three months ago.
• Which vendor billed a core charge with no core credit? Check whether the core was ever returned.
• Which vendor’s credit took three months to appear?
• Which crew or location generates the most missing tickets?
• Pick one change per month. Fix the worst vendor, not all of them.

How InvoiceAnchor handles this

InvoiceAnchor is built around the vendor statement. You forward each invoice when it arrives, as email, PDF, scan, phone photo or a handwritten counter ticket. It waits under the vendor’s name. When that vendor’s statement comes in, it triggers a line-by-line match against the held invoices, amounts side by side. Clean matches queue in “Waiting for approval” for a one-click sign-off. Each unmatched line carries one reason: “No invoice provided,” “Amounts differ,” “Not on the statement,” “Different month,” “Statement credit,” or “Invoice number format.” If a late ticket turns up, you add it and re-run the match. The re-run is free and never counts against your document allowance. Approved reconciliations land in File storage. You can give the accountant read-only access there, and any reconciliation downloads as one package with every source document. An optional line-item check can also flag a part priced at least 10% (and at least $1) above what that vendor last charged you. It can flag a core charge older than 30 days with no core credit since, and a change in the vendor’s remit-to details between invoices.

Questions that come up