✅ Enabling PO Matching

Please contact your Routable customer success representative to configure 2-Way or 3-Way PO Matching.

🔗 Creating a Payable linked to a PO

There are multiple ways to create a payable linked to a PO in Routable.

1. Create bill via the Inbox
2. Create bill from PO
3. Import Bills with linked POs

⭐️ Note: PO Matching in Routable is currently supported for Purchase Orders that are created in Netsuite, in USD.

1. 📥 Create bill via the Inbox

Step 1: Create the bill

1. Receive bills in your Inbox
   • 📚Adding bills to my inbox
2. Click an Inbox bill to enter the “Create payable” screen.
3. Confirm that the vendor and contacts are correctly selected.
4. Verify the PO number is correct.
   • If there is no PO number indicated on the invoice, Routable will list possible matches and allow you to manually select a matching PO.
5. If 3-Way PO Matching is enabled, choose the desired PO Matching type (2-Way or 3-Way) 
6. Verify the bill details such as invoice date, due date, and bill number.

What POs in Netsuite cannot be selected?

• With the Advanced Receiving Feature off:
  • Pending Receipt – The purchase is pending entry of a bill, including partially billed purchase orders.
  • Pending Supervisor Approval – The purchase request has not been approved.
  • Rejected By Supervisor – The purchase request has been declined.
  • Fully Billed – All items on the order have been received and billed.
  • Closed – The purchase order has been canceled.
• With the Advanced Receiving Feature on:
  • Pending Supervisor Approval – The purchase request has not been approved.
  • Rejected By Supervisor – The purchase request has been declined.
  • Fully Billed – All items on the order have been received and billed.
  • Closed – The purchase order has been canceled.

Step 2: Validate line item linking or manually link bill lines to PO lines

Validating that each bill line is linked to the correct PO line is the critical foundation of PO Matching. Routable first uses OCR + AI + algorithmic matching to auto-link bill lines to PO lines, so you can simply validate line item linking. If lines don't link or linking is incorrect, you can manually link bill lines to PO lines

⚡️Automatic Bill-to-PO line linking - If the PO number is listed on the invoice, Routable will scan the invoice for the purchase order number and attempt to automatically link individual bill lines to line items on the PO. 

• Routable uses OCR + AI + algorithmic matching to auto-link bill lines to PO lines using the method with the highest confidence. Linking is based on similarity between:
  • A line item's description on the bill and an expense/item's name and description on the PO. 
  • An item code recognized from the bill and expense/item's name or item code on the PO.
  • If a NetSuite item name, item code, or description isn't similar to what is on bills, then auto-linking will not occur. 
• Once a line is linked, PO coding details (Class, Location, Department) get auto-applied to the payable header and linked bill line items. 
• Line items get automatically classified as expenses or inventory lines, making bill creation a breeze.

Automatic Bill-to-PO line linking: What to expect

What if bill lines fail to automatically link to a PO line?

This may be due to the bill line not existing on the PO, or the item code/memo/description on the bill line not matching the name or description of any PO lines. To improve bill-to-PO line automatic linking:

• Ensure the item name, code, or descriptions on your vendor bills match the item codes, descriptions or names on your PO lines as closely as possible
• Ensure the line items included on bills are also included as line items on the PO

Note: You can always pay bills with line items not linked to POs by treating them as discrepancies.

🔗 Manual Bill-to-PO line linking Linking - By clicking the 3 dots on the far right side of each line item, you can link a PO line to a bill line manually.

1. • Note:
     
     • You can only link an invoice to a purchase order during bill creation. You may later unlink the purchase order from the bill, but you would not be able to re-link or link another PO once the bill has been created.
     • POs in draft status, and any approval statuses on the POs won't sync to Routable.

Step 3: Review matching discrepancies

Once line items are linked, Routable will compare bill line items to PO line items, and identify discrepancies for you to review. 

When 3-Way Matching is enabled, Routable will treat a missing receipt as a discrepancy, and block payments for bills with discrepancies, or allow them to be paid once approved.

1. • Note:
     • You can track open PO balances in the PO line item table as multiple bill balances are applied and subtracted from the PO until the PO is filled, or multiple bills are matched to the PO.
     • You can pay bills where the PO quantity remaining is less than the bill quantity, and when bill line items are not included on PO.

Step 4: Finishing coding the payable

1. Choose how and when to pay the bill.
2. Click ”Send Payment” or ”Send for PO Discrepancy Approval” if there are PO Discrepancies
3. Select approvers (if required)

2. ✂️ Create bill from PO

Create bill from PO gives you the option to import all unbilled PO line items directly to the bill, and change bill lines manually while identifying discrepancies.

1. Select New in the navigation menu
2. Select Bill
3. Enter the “Create payable” screen
4. Attach a document (optional)
   • Select to upload or drag the document into the document window
5. Select a vendor and a PO#
   • Once a PO is selected, the bill details will auto-populate based on the PO details
6. Verify the bill details

3. ⤵️ Importing Bills with linked POs

You can import and pay bills from Netsuite already linked to 1 or multiple POs.

⭐️ Note: for bills imported from Netsuite, PO Matching is only supported for bills linked to a single PO#, and for USD currency POs.

When can bills linked to POs in Netsuite not be imported?

• With the Advanced Receiving Feature off:
  • Pending Supervisor Approval – The purchase request has not been approved.
  • Rejected By Supervisor – The purchase request has been declined.
  • Fully Billed – All items on the order have been received and billed.
  • Closed – The purchase order has been canceled.
• With the Advanced Receiving Feature on:
  • Pending Supervisor Approval – The purchase request has not been approved.
  • Rejected By Supervisor – The purchase request has been declined.
  • Fully Billed – All items on the order have been received and billed.
  • Closed – The purchase order has been canceled.

✏️ Editing a Payable linked to a PO

You can edit some aspects of a payable that is linked to 1 or multiple POs.

How editing works:

• You can only link an invoice to a purchase order during bill creation. You may later unlink the purchase order from the bill, but you would not be able to re-link or link another PO once the bill has been created.

• Any PO editing that happens after matching will not affect scheduled or unscheduled payables.

• Any edits in Netsuite won’t sync to Routable automatically. If you think data on a PO has changed, select “Refresh PO Matching” in the top right of the screen.

• If you would like to unlink a Purchase Order from an invoice you may do so by unlinking the PO, deleting or modifying the line items associated with the PO. Routable will warn you when modifications will unlink a connected PO. 

  • Once a bill is linked to a PO, it cannot be unlinked and must be deleted if a new bill is required.

• A bill line cannot be linked to a PO line. You can only unlink ones that have been previously linked and this action is irreversible.

• Transferring a linked bill line item from Expense section to the Item section or vice versa will unlink it from the PO line item (and it cannot be linked again).

• Deleting a linked bill line item, will unlink it (and it cannot be linked again).

• PO data is not shown on items with multiple POs linked or the linked PO is not in USD.

• If a PO has been updated, the latest PO data will be shown when editing a payable. If there are new discrepancies found, the payable status will change to “PO Discrepancy”

✅ PO Discrepancy Approvals

Control how discrepancies are handled by having payables with discrepancies for PO line discrepancies reviewed and approved, or having your team update the PO to resolve discrepancies.

• Routable block payments for bills with discrepancies when 2-Way or 3-Way PO Matching is enabled, until the payable is approved by a member with PO Discrepancy approval permissions, or the PO is updated and Routable PO Matching is refreshed.
• When PO Discrepancy Approval is required on a payable, you can easily tag a reviewer who can resolve the discrepancies.

Assigning PO Discrepancy Approval Permission

To assign PO Discrepancy permissions to Routable members, select "Approve discrepancies" under PO Matching within the "Roles" section of account settings. 

⏩ PO Matching & Payable Approvals

You can choose to enable or disable payable approval rules for PO linked bills through Routable support.

Payable approval rules for PO linked bills enabled

• Regardless of PO Matching discrepancy approvals, Payable Approval will be required when a payable meets conditions requiring approval.

Payable approval rules for PO linked bills disabled

• When a payable is linked to a PO, Payable Approval rules will not be triggered regardless of whether a payable meets conditions requiring approval. Since either all PO lines match bill lines or there is an approved PO discrepancy, no additional payable approvals are required.

💸 Paying international vendors in different currencies

Routable supports domestic currency (USD) PO’s and domestic currency (USD) vendor invoices for PO Matching workflows. Routable also supports non-US vendors with USD bills receiving local or SWIFT currencies.

Ex. Paying a vendor in Mexico in pesos

✅ Supported: USD PO + USD Invoice + MXN Payment

⛔️ Not supported: MXN PO + MXN Invoice + MXN Payment