Invoice reconciliation — purchase order versus supplier invoice

This Watch compares what you ordered with what the supplier billed you, line by line, and raises the differences. In Settings → Workspace → Watches it sits under Financial as FI-4.

The FI-4 Watch open in its detail panel, showing that either a supplier feed or a mailbox satisfies the invoice requirement.

What it watches for

A supplier invoice whose quantity, unit price, setup, decoration, freight, handling or tax differs from the purchase order.
A duplicate — the same invoice billed twice.
An invoice with no purchase order behind it at all.
A back-ordered quantity that was billed but never shipped.
Sales tax charged on a resale purchase order.
A tariff surcharge the purchase order never carried.
Freight billed above what the supplier quoted.

Why it matters

Supplier invoices get approved, not read. There are too many of them, they arrive weeks after the order, and the person paying them is rarely the person who placed the order. Every one of those differences is money that comes straight off the job's margin, and most of them are recoverable with a single email — if anyone notices within the supplier's dispute window. The match itself is arithmetic; the hard part is doing it every time, which is what this Watch is for.

It books as Margin on the Found ledger.

What it needs connected

One required: a supplier feed or a mailbox. Either can carry the invoice — the supplier's own invoice service where they publish one, or the PDF that arrived in your mail.
Helpful: your accounting system, a CRM. Accounting is what lets Scout see that a bill was already entered, which is how duplicates get caught reliably.

What the point looks like

A point is one item Scout raises with the proof behind it. This one arrives in the Inbox as a recommendation:

Alpha Apparel billed 640 on the Camp Canine order — the PO was 600 — Camp Canine · JOB-2214

The supplier invoice bills 640 bandanas at the 600-unit price, plus $48 freight against a quoted freight of $31. Everything else matches the purchase order. Total difference: $214.

Evidence: the purchase order with its lines · the supplier invoice · the supplier's quoted freight · the line-by-line comparison.

Prepared by Scout: a dispute email with the differences set out in a table.

The settings that tune it

None. A difference is a difference, so there is nothing to make this Watch more or less sensitive. Its settings block reads No adjustable thresholds.

When it arrives

This is one of the launch-wave Watches. It is not raising points today — its row in Settings reads Coming soon. You can turn it on now; there is nothing else to configure. We do not publish a date for it.

Good to know

Scout reads invoices. It never adjusts a bill, approves one, or writes anything into your accounting system — the dispute email is a draft for you to send.
Very few suppliers publish an invoice service today. Where yours does not, the mailbox PDF is the path, and the point says which one it used.
Sales tax on a resale purchase order is worth setting up properly with the supplier rather than disputing every time — but the Watch will keep catching it until you do.
A promised credit that never arrives after the dispute is FI-5.
A purchase order that was acknowledged with the wrong quantity in the first place is SI-1 — catching it there is much cheaper than catching it here.