Accounts payable for distribution companies

The specific pain of distribution

Five patterns we see every week in distribution SMEs across food, hardware, building materials and consumer goods:

1. Partial delivery notes

You order 100 units. 80 arrive in one delivery and 20 in the next. The invoice covers all 100 at the end. Matching requires correlating two delivery notes with a single invoice, line by line. Excel does not scale with this.

2. Returns for damaged goods

100 units arrive, 5 are broken, you return them. But the invoice still bills you for 100. If you only match totals, you pay for 5 units you never received. Matching by totals is a trap.

3. Rebates and after-the-fact credit notes

Your supplier promises a 3% rebate at the end of the quarter. It arrives as a separate credit note. Reconciling it against the original invoices is manual work. And often it just doesn't happen: the rebate gets "lost" as an unlinked credit note.

4. Price changes without notice

The supplier raises the price of product X by 2% and forgets to tell you. Your PO is still on the old price. The invoice comes in at the new price. The total matches (small variance within tolerance). You pay more. How to calculate price variance.

5. High volume with small tickets

A distributor processing 600 invoices/month with an average ticket of 1,500 EUR runs through ~10,800 lines per month. Reconciling them manually takes 80-120 hours per month. With 9% variance undetected at the totals level, that means ~6,000 EUR/month of invisible overpayments.

How ininvoice solves it

1. Captures every invoice from supplier email automatically.
2. Reads line by line even multi-page invoices with many products.
3. Matches multiple delivery notes against a single invoice when deliveries are partial.
4. Detects invisible overpayments from line-to-line offsetting.
5. Identifies separate credit notes and rebates and connects them with the matching invoices.
6. Detects duplicates even when a supplier resends the same invoice over two channels.
7. Exports to your ERP (Holded, Sage, A3, Contasol, Quipu) already reconciled.

Real use case

Food distributor, 600 invoices/month, 80 active suppliers, Holded ERP:

• Before: 1 person spent half a day matching invoices in Excel. Time: ~80 h/month.
• After: ininvoice reconciles automatically. The person only reviews exceptions (~30 invoices/month with variance). Time: ~10 h/month.
• Hours saved: ~70 h/month.
• Overpayments caught in first quarter: 4-figure range (enough to cover the annual cost of the software).

Estimates from the average distribution SME profile. Your real numbers depend on the rigor of your current process.

Which kind of distributor it fits

• Food, beverage and consumer goods distribution.
• Hardware stores and building-materials warehouses.
• Industrial distributors (chemicals, plastics, textiles).
• Hospitality supply chains (Makro-style supplier of suppliers).

Compatibility with your ERP

Works alongside any of the usual ERPs in distribution:

• Holded
• Sage 50 / 200
• A3 ERP
• Quipu
• Contasol, Odoo, SAP B1 via importable CSV

Regulatory compliance 2026-2027

Distribution is one of the sectors most affected by mandatory electronic invoicing. Your large suppliers (manufacturers above 8M EUR turnover) will start sending structured e-invoices from September 2026. But the operational problem on your side does not change: you still have to control every invoice against its delivery note before you pay it.

ininvoice reads each supplier invoice you receive (PDF or a scan/photo), matches it line by line against the PO and delivery note, blocks duplicates and validates VAT, IRPF and tax IDs before posting. As the Verifactu and e-invoicing transition rolls out in 2026-2027, that control on the receiving side matters more, not less.