Accounting
What is Three-Way Match?
Three-way match is the accounts payable control process of verifying that a supplier invoice matches both the original purchase order (PO) and the goods receipt note (GRN) before payment is approved.
Explanation
Three-way matching is a critical internal control that prevents overpayment, duplicate payment, and fraudulent invoices. Manually, it requires pulling the PO and GRN for each invoice and comparing quantities, unit prices, and totals — a time-consuming process that creates bottlenecks in AP workflows. Discrepancies (price variances, quantity mismatches) require further investigation and often hold up payment runs. Automated three-way matching uses AI to extract invoice data and compare it against PO and receipt data in your ERP automatically, flagging only the exceptions that need human review. This dramatically speeds up the approval cycle while maintaining control standards.
How Rima relates
Rima Blueprints can automate the three-way match process — extracting invoice data and comparing against PO records, flagging discrepancies for review.
Explore invoice processing automationRelated Terms
Accounts Payable (AP)
Money a business owes to suppliers for goods or services received but not yet paid.
Invoice Processing
The end-to-end workflow of receiving, validating, approving, and recording supplier invoices.
Purchase Order (PO) Matching
The process of matching an invoice against its corresponding purchase order to verify quantities and prices.
Internal Controls
Policies and procedures designed to prevent errors, fraud, and ensure accurate financial reporting.
See it in action
Rima automates the manual document workflows accounting teams spend hours on every week.