3-way match with paper

Question

Hi,
Would like to ask if there's any documentation that suggests 3-way match (PO-GR-IR) in a computer system with the addition of paper as a best practice for checks and balances?
Hope to hear from you soon.

Answer 1

Hmm, an interesting situation. What are the quantities on your purchase orders? Are they almost always a quantity of 1? Payables should only close a purchase order when quantity billed and quantity received is GT or equal to the quantity ordered. So if you order a quantity of 10, you could match for quantity 5 on the first invoice, quantity 3 for the second invoice, and quantity 2 for the final invoice. But since you don't receive the quantity until the 3rd invoice, you cannot match on receipts, so that would be a problem.
Maybe you need to approach this from a different angle? Maybe you should look at the prepayments ability in Payables. Typically Prepayments will be charged to a Prepayment Account (asset). Say you have a purchase order for $10,000. You prepay $5,000 up front, so basically Debit Prepayment 5,000 and Credit Cash 5,000. Same for the next prepayment level - $3,000. Then you get the ordered material received. So you want to do an invoice for $10,000. Match the invoice to the purchase order. Apply the prepayments to the purchase order. Thus you get an entry something like Debit Inventory $10,000, Credit Prepayments $8,000, and Credit Cash $2,000.
From an accounting perspecitive, you don't show the prepayments in inventory until received, but do show a prepayment asset. Which is reflecting what you really are doing I think.
I have never worked for anyone who has had to do prepayments, but this is an area that you may wish to investigate as a possible solution for your situation. Good luck.
John Dickey