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Guide
Match bills to purchase orders
Record a purchase order, note what was delivered, and let Zonitix stop a bill that does not agree with what you ordered.
Before you start
- Finance is part of the Advanced plan. When your plan includes it, a “Finance” section appears in the sidebar.
- A finance role that can manage finance. In the built-in set, administrators have that permission, and so do members of the “Finance” group. The “finance_manager” role has it too; no group carries it, so an administrator gives it to a person by hand, as Roles, groups and permissions shows. The “Match” tab is only shown to those roles.
- The purchase order (PO) you agreed with the vendor: its number, the vendor and the total, and the individual lines if you want each line checked.
Record the order
Step 1: Open the Match tab
Go to FinanceFinanceMatch. The top card is the “PURCHASE ORDER REGISTER”. Below it, “BLOCKING EXCEPTIONS” lists every bill that does not agree with its order.
Step 2: Create the purchase order
Click “NEW PO”, on the right of the “BLOCKING EXCEPTIONS” heading below the register. In the “New purchase order” window enter the “PO number” exactly as the vendor will print it on the bill, the “Vendor”, the “Total amount” and its currency. “Department” and “Cost centre” are optional; fill them in so the order counts against the right budget.
To have each line checked, click “Add line” under “LINE ITEMS (optional)” and give each line a “Description”, “Qty” and “Unit price”. When there are lines, the total is worked out from them and the “Total amount” box is not used. Click “Create PO”.
The PO number is stored in capital letters, and a bill’s PO number is compared without regard to capitals.
Step 3: Record what was delivered
When the goods or services arrive, find the order in the register and click the “Receive goods” icon on its row. In the window that opens (titled “Receive” and the PO number), type the quantity that arrived in “Received now” for each line and click “Record receipt”. You can record a delivery in several parts.
The order’s “Status” changes to partially received, and to received once every line has arrived in full. Only an order that has lines can be received against.
Deal with a bill that does not match
Step 4: See why a bill was stopped
Zonitix reads the PO number from the bill when it is uploaded; the person uploading can also add or correct it. Each exception under “BLOCKING EXCEPTIONS” shows the bill, the PO, a “TYPE”, what was “EXPECTED”, the “ACTUAL” figure and the “VARIANCE”:
- “No matching PO”: the bill quotes a PO number that is not in the register.
- “Price variance”: the bill’s total, or a line’s unit price, differs from the order by more than the tolerance.
- “Quantity variance”: a line bills a quantity that differs from the one ordered by more than the tolerance.
- “Over-received”: more was recorded as delivered than was ordered, by more than the tolerance.
- “No goods receipt”: no delivery has been recorded for the order. This only appears when your security administrator has turned on “Require a goods receipt (strict 3-way)” in Finance settings.
The tolerance is 2% unless it has been changed in Finance settings.
Step 5: Fix the cause, or waive it
If the order was simply missing, create it (step 2). If the delivery had not been recorded, record it (step 3). Zonitix checks the waiting bills again as soon as you do either, and a bill that now agrees leaves the list.
If the difference is real but acceptable, click “Waive” on the exception, type a “Reason for waiving” and confirm. The reason is kept in the audit trail. To waive several at once, tick them and click “Waive selected”; the same reason is recorded on each.
Step 6: Close the order when it is finished
When nothing more will be delivered or billed against an order, click the “Close PO” icon on its row and confirm. A closed order cannot be reopened from the register.
What you should see
On the “Approvals” tab, a bill that agrees with its order shows “MATCHED” under “MATCH”. A bill with an open exception shows “EXCEPTION” and cannot be approved until the exception is fixed or waived.
When no bill is stopped, the Match tab says “All invoices matched cleanly”.
If something goes wrong
- "PO … already exists"
- That PO number is already in the register. Find it there instead of creating it again.
- "Enter a PO number and a total greater than 0 (or add line items with a quantity and unit price)."
- The order needs a number and either a total or at least one complete line.
- "Budget exceeded — … Creating this PO requires a budget override."
- An order is a commitment against a budget, and this one would take that budget past what is available. Reduce the order, or get the budget raised first (see the budget guide).
- "Segregation of duties: the uploader/submitter of this invoice cannot waive its own match exception."
- This is by design. Ask another person in finance to waive it.
- "This PO has no lines to receive against."
- The order was created with a total only. A delivery can only be recorded against lines, so the bill is checked against the order total alone.
- A bill still shows "No matching PO" after you created the order.
- Check that the PO number on the bill is the same as the one in the register. If the bill was read wrongly and has not been submitted yet, the uploader or a finance reviewer can correct its PO number, and the bill is checked again when they save. Once a bill has been submitted its details are frozen: an approver rejects it (a reason is required), the PO number is corrected, and the bill is submitted again. Or waive the exception with a reason (step 5).
Still stuck? See When something goes wrong, or Contact Zonitix support.