Invoice reconciliation is the process of matching supplier invoices against purchase orders, contracts, and goods receipts to verify pricing, quantity, and terms before payment authorization.
Two-way and three-way matching
Two-way matching compares invoice to PO. Three-way matching adds goods receipt as verification. Contract-aware reconciliation extends this to verify pricing against the underlying contract, catching deviations that two-way and three-way miss.
The recovery opportunity
Overpayments detected during reconciliation are prevented; overpayments detected after payment require recovery. AP recovery firms exist precisely because reconciliation catches only a fraction of pricing deviations without structured contract data.
