Invoices, Credit Memos, and Expense Reports
Document types
Payables processes standard invoices, credit memos, debit memos, prepayments, expense report invoices, withholding tax invoices, and interest invoices. The header holds supplier, supplier site, number, date, currency, terms, and amount; lines carry a line type (Item, Freight, Tax, Miscellaneous) and distributions to account combinations. Supplier plus invoice number must be unique - the duplicate check is a validation control.
Matching and validation
Invoices can be matched to a purchase order (2-way), a receipt (3-way), or inspection (4-way); the match approval level determines whether the header or each line is matched. Validate Invoice confirms the supplier site is active and enabled for payment, checks dates and currency, builds the payment schedule, applies tax, and places holds when matching or tolerance rules fail. Validation must precede approval.
Credit memos
A credit memo is a negative-amount document. It reduces a payment only when it is applied to an invoice through Apply to Invoice; an unapplied credit memo sits as a credit balance. Use Unapply to reverse the link.
Expense reports
Expense reports are created and approved in Expenses, then transferred to Payables as the Expense Report invoice type, with the employee as supplier. Payables does not re-approve them; it validates, accounts, and pays them through a payment process request. Corrections go back through Expenses.
Worked example
A PO is 1,000, the receipt is 900, and the invoice is 1,000 with 3-way matching. Validation creates a quantity hold for 100. Correcting the receipt to 1,000 and revalidating clears the hold; releasing the hold manually without fixing the receipt only defers the problem.
Traps
Approval does not replace validation. An unapplied credit memo never reduces a payment. Editing an expense report in Payables is not supported.