Accounts payable in industry: raw materials, components, plant services and freight

In an industrial company, supplier invoices come from three worlds with different controls: raw materials and components, which have a purchase order and a delivery note and are matched line by line on price and quantity; plant services (maintenance, subcontracting, calibrations), which have no goods delivery note; and freight and surcharges, which accompany the other two. A single control for everything holds services that will never have a delivery note or lets through materials that never arrived.

Three types of invoice, three controls

Example in euros: partial delivery invoiced in full (synthetic data)

Example built for this guide with round figures; it does not correspond to any real company.

A plant orders 2,000 kg of polypropylene pellets at EUR 1.35/kg and 300 units of a bearing at EUR 18.40. The supplier delivers 1,500 kg and the 300 units, and invoices the full purchase order plus EUR 85 of agreed freight.

The invoice is correct against the purchase order and charges EUR 675 for material that has not arrived. The right way to resolve it is not to pay and wait for the second delivery: it is to hold the pellets line until the rest is received, or to ask for an invoice for what was delivered. What matches (the bearing and the freight) has to be identified as correct so that the conversation with the supplier is limited to the pellets.

Plant services: no delivery note, but a purchase order

Maintenance, a calibration or subcontracted work do not generate a goods delivery note. Requiring one blocks correct invoices; requiring nothing lets unagreed hours through. The middle ground is a service purchase order with an amount or a rate, against which the invoice is checked (two-way matching), and the approval of whoever requested the work for anything outside the purchase order. When two documents are enough and when three are needed is covered in two-way versus three-way matching (in Spanish).

Tolerances: how much is accepted and where it is set

Raw materials are almost never delivered to the gram ordered. A tolerance per line, in euros and as a percentage, avoids holding every invoice over small differences; the tolerance agreed in the purchase order itself (“±5% on the quantity ordered”, for example) is more precise, because it is the one the supplier accepted. A unit price difference deserves review even when it falls within tolerance: if the price changes, it changes on every delivery. The logic of tolerances per line is in how three-way matching tolerances work.

What ininvoice does with these invoices

• Materials and components. It matches each line against the purchase order and the delivery note and shows the difference in euros, with the tolerance the organisation sets (by default it holds the line that exceeds EUR 1.50 or 2%). If the purchase order prints its own quantity tolerance, it reads it and applies it when the unit price is the purchase order price.
• Partial deliveries. Several delivery notes can cover the same purchase order line, and each invoice consumes quantities from the purchase order; what has not been delivered stays open.
• Services. A purchase order marked as a service order, with no receipt, is matched against the purchase order only. Freight and other service charges within a materials purchase order do not wait for a delivery note if they match the service items configured by the organisation.
• No purchase order. An invoice with no purchase order is not taken as valid: it is held for a person to review and approve.
• Units. It converts demonstrable equivalences (grams and kilos, dozens, boxes whose content is shown on the line); if there is no demonstrable equivalence, the line is left for review.

Limits today: lines are paired by description, not by component code; ininvoice does not read batches, serial numbers or expiry dates, and does not do four-way matching with quality inspection. It reads invoices as PDF, image, scan or photo; direct reading of structured e-invoices is in development.

E-invoicing 2027 in industry

According to the Spanish Tax Agency calendar, a manufacturer with a volume of operations above EUR 8 million will receive structured e-invoices from 6 October 2027, and Royal Decree 238/2026 (article 10) requires it to report to the supplier the rejection and the full payment of each invoice within four days, not counting Saturdays, Sundays or national public holidays. A structured invoice makes reading easier, but it does not say whether the 2,000 kg arrived. See what changes in 2027 for the company that receives invoices.

Frequently asked questions