For certain suppliers, a purchase order is always required when making purchases. This requirement ensures that all transactions are properly documented and authorized, helping to maintain compliance with internal procurement policies.

Perk lets you flag the supplier as a PO supplier. This means that whenever Perk processes invoices for that supplier, it always expects at least one PO number for the invoice.

Usually, Perk AI extracts the PO number from the invoice and matches it with the PO data already imported. However, at times the supplier may fail to indicate a PO number on their invoices (or they only provide delivery note numbers), or the PO data of PO number provided on the invoice has not yet been imported in Perk when the invoice arrives.

For those cases, when a PO number cannot be found on the invoice, but still the invoice requires PO processing, Perk flags the invoice with a notification. If you have enabled PO auto-matching, Perk tries to find matching PO lines from the PO data already available in Perk.

Enable a PO supplier

You flag a supplier as a PO supplier in the supplier settings (Invoices > Invoice processor > Suppliers) by clicking on supplier, going to the Settings tab, and in the Default supplier settings section, selecting PO supplier.

You can also specify a supplier as a PO supplier via API and via CSV import.

Processing invoices for PO suppliers

When you process an invoice for a supplier that is flagged as being a PO supplier, Perk checks that a PO number has been extracted from the invoice.

Where Perk AI is unable to detect and extract the PO number, it displays a notification:

Triggering auto-matching if PO number not found

Perk AI looks to detect and extract the PO number from invoices, so it can be used to identify the corresponding PO and automatically match line items. However, at times the supplier may forget to explicitly include the PO number on the invoice.

In these cases, if you have flagged the supplier as being one that always provides POs for invoices, you can configure Perk to automatically perform auto-matching. 

To do this, go to Invoices > Invoice processor > Suppliers, click on supplier and go to the Settings tab. In Default supplier settings for this supplier, select Trigger auto-matching if PO number not found.

Perk compares the invoice data with the data available for the purchase orders for the supplier and tries to match the invoice to potential POs and GRs.