PO, order confirmation and invoice: which version should you compare?

When a purchase order, supplier confirmation and invoice disagree, identify the terms your authorized buyer has accepted before deciding whether a charge is wrong. Compare the documents separately while that decision is pending. A later date or a matching invoice does not, by itself, establish acceptance of a supplier’s change.

For a price check, record the item, quantity, unit, currency and applicable revision together. Keep delivery dates and other terms in the review too; an unchanged price can sit beside a changed delivery commitment.

What each document tells you

Document	What you can read from it	What still needs evidence
Purchase order	The buyer’s stated items, quantities, prices and requested terms	Whether a later amendment changed those terms
Supplier order confirmation	What the supplier says it will supply and on what terms	Whether the buyer accepted any changes
Invoice	What the supplier is billing	Whether the billed terms were agreed, goods were received or payment was made

This is a document-review method. Contract terms and your organization’s approval process determine who can accept a change. If that authority or the agreement is unclear, record the question for the responsible person.

Follow one price through the documents

In this fictional example, PO-730 buys 100 each of R-10 at $8.00 each. All amounts are USD before tax; there are no extra charges. These documents are separate from the site’s other sample set.

Date	Record	Quantity and price	Review note
October 1	PO-730, revision 1	100 each at $8.00; $800.00	Buyer requests delivery October 20
October 2	Supplier confirmation OC-730	100 each at $8.40; $840.00	Supplier proposes delivery October 27
October 3	Buyer email	Approves the $8.40 price only	Explicitly asks the supplier to retain October 20
October 4	PO-730, revision 2	100 each at $8.40; $840.00	Records the approved price; delivery remains October 20
October 15	Invoice INV-730	100 each at $8.40; $840.00	References PO-730 without a revision number

Assume the email came from an authorized buyer and revision 2 was issued through the buyer’s approval process. The invoice matches the approved price in revision 2. Compared with revision 1, it is $40.00 higher. Both comparisons are arithmetically correct, but only one describes the price basis selected for this invoice review.

The delivery-date change remains open. Approval of the price did not approve October 27. The invoice also tells you nothing about the date the goods actually arrived.

If the email and revision 2 were missing, the available documents would show a $40.00 price difference with acceptance unverified. Request the missing records before describing it as an accepted increase or an overcharge.

Record the baseline before calculating differences

Use a short review note that another person can check:

Price comparison basis: PO-730 revision 2, issued October 4, supported by the authorized buyer’s October 3 price approval. Compare INV-730 with 100 each at USD 8.40. Delivery-date disagreement remains open. No receiving or payment records were reviewed.

Download the revision-log worksheet and worked example. It includes space for the source location and reviewer who confirmed the basis.

For each disputed field, ask:

• Are these documents for the same order, item and buyer entity?
• Does the amendment cover this quantity or delivery stage?
• Which record shows acceptance, and who had authority to give it?
• Is a later file a replacement, an additional bill or a copy?

File names such as final.pdf and updated.pdf are useful clues, but they are not sufficient revision records. Preserve the original file and its printed identifier, then record how it relates to the other versions.

Keep three comparisons distinct

PO versus confirmation reveals what the supplier changed. Confirmation versus invoice reveals what changed between the supplier’s stated terms and its bill. Invoice versus the confirmed review baseline checks the bill against the terms selected by your reviewer.

These checks answer different questions. In the example, confirmation and invoice agree on $840.00 even before you inspect the buyer’s approval. That agreement alone would not settle the $40.00 difference from the original PO.

For a worked example with several items, use the PO and confirmation guide and confirmation and invoice guide. If the order has several invoices, keep a cumulative billing register so a partial bill is compared with its allocated scope.

Carry the decision into the report

Keep the original $8.00 price, the revised $8.40 price and the $40.00 difference in the record. Add the approval reference and the decision alongside them. Rewriting the original PO value to $8.40 would hide why the reviewer accepted the change.

LineRecon lets a reviewer inspect differences against source evidence and record a business decision separately. The reviewer still establishes which terms were accepted; the tool does not decide contractual authority. Use the discrepancy-report template to see how the basis, evidence and unresolved questions can travel together.

Common questions

Should I always use the newest document?

Check its identity, scope and acceptance first. A newer invoice may replace an older invoice, while a newer confirmation may propose a change the buyer has not accepted.

Can I ignore the original PO after a revision?

Keep it as part of the history. Use the applicable confirmed revision for the current comparison and retain the earlier version to explain what changed.

Does an invoice matching the confirmation mean it can be paid?

It establishes agreement between those fields in those documents. Receipt, approval and payment checks may still be outstanding. Microsoft’s invoice-matching overview distinguishes PO price checks from checks against product receipts.