Finance: Invoice Capture and Three-Way Matching
Capture every supplier invoice, extract every field, match PO-receipt-invoice automatically, and approve only what's right.
Finance: Invoice Capture and Three-Way Matching
The finance team's recurring nightmare: supplier invoices arriving via email, WhatsApp, hand-delivery, and the postal service, all needing to be matched against POs and goods receipts before they can be paid. Papyrus replaces that nightmare with a single inbox.
The unified invoice inbox
Configure invoices@{tenant}.papyrus.io as the email-to-Papyrus inbox. Tell every supplier that this is the only way invoices are accepted. Within 30 days, 90%+ of your invoice volume arrives there.
The AI pipeline does the rest:
- Classifies the document as an invoice
- Extracts: invoice number, dates (issue, due), vendor name, KRA PIN, line items, totals, tax components
- Validates the vendor against your counterparty register
- Flags duplicates by hash + invoice number combination
- Routes to the appropriate approver queue
Three-way matching
When the invoice arrives, Papyrus looks for:
- The matching PO — by PO number on the invoice, or by counterparty + value match
- The matching goods receipt — by PO link, or by date proximity
If all three match within tolerance (configurable, typically 2% on value, 0% on quantity), the invoice is auto-approved for payment. If any mismatch occurs, it's routed to a Finance Officer for resolution with all three documents linked.
Set value tolerances higher for utility invoices (variable consumption) and lower for fixed-price POs. Papyrus supports per-supplier and per-document-type tolerance configuration.
For Kenya-based suppliers, Papyrus validates:
- Vendor KRA PIN is present and well-formed
- eTIMS receipt is attached when required (over KES 5,000 from 2024)
- CU invoice number is recorded for KRA filing
Non-compliant invoices are routed to a separate “Compliance Hold” queue rather than into the regular AP workflow.
What Finance teams measure
After 90 days on Papyrus, AP teams typically see:
- Median invoice-to-payment time drop from 12 days to 3
- Duplicate-payment incidents drop to zero (hash-based detection catches every duplicate)
- Match rate on three-way matching above 75% (no human touch)
- AP team time freed for reconciliation and supplier negotiation rather than data entry