Approving an invoice takes seconds. Working out whether you should is what takes the morning.
The three questions
Before anyone approves a supplier invoice, they need to be able to answer three things:
- Did we order this? Is there a purchase order, and does this invoice line belong to it?
- Is the price right? Does the amount match what was agreed on the order?
- Is there money left in the client's funding? Will this spend fit inside the participant's remaining budget for that service category?
In most organisations that is two or three systems and a phone call. The purchase order lives in the care platform. The budget balance lives in the care platform too, but on a different screen. The invoice is in the finance system or an inbox. The approver bounces between them, or emails the case manager to ask.
One screen
Invoice Harbour pulls purchase orders and the client's remaining budget directly from your existing care platform and shows them alongside the invoice. For each invoice line you see which purchase order line it belongs to, with the best match highlighted, and what is left in the client's funding by category, updated that day. Purchase order matching and client budgets each have their own page.
The approver answers all three questions from the one screen, then approves. The invoice publishes to the finance system to pay the supplier and to the care platform against the purchase order and the participant's budget.
How many systems does your team touch before an invoice gets approved?
