Invoice authorisation and dealing with disputes

Not every supplier will issue a statement but it's important to always pay the invoices on or before their due date. For a supplier who issues a statement this is a fairly straight forward process of reconciling the statement with the payables ledger and if they agree paying the amount the statement suggests is outstanding.

For suppliers who don't issue a statement we will need to pay them based off the invoices issued.

Invoice Authorisation

In most organisations before any invoices are paid they will need to be authorised for payment. This usually involves an authorised person (possibly the person who ordered and is aware if the items are received)

Authorisation can be indicated in a variety of ways including:

• Checkers initials / signatures - possibly alongside the date and writing the word pay on a physical invoice
• A rubber stamp - this sometimes can have a space for other info like the cost code, a purchase order number and a signature of the checker
• Some other form of electronic / digital authorisation (not in AAT book however).

The initials or name of the authoriser are helpful in case of further queries.

Some business will not enter an invoice onto the accounting system until it has been approved for payment. The issue here is that until an invoice is approved there won't be a record of it so if it goes missing or the approval is delayed the payment terms could possibly be missed.

Some digital systems resolve this by attaching a status (received, pending, approved, paid) to the invoice so it can be recorded and tracked (and therefore chased) - so even if a physical copy goes missing there is a record of it somewhere.