Platypus

Finance & admin

Match invoices to orders without the spreadsheet chase

Reconciling invoices usually means a spreadsheet, two systems and a lot of careful comparing. Platypus links each invoice to the order it bills, shows any difference with both records side by side and suggests the correction.

Platy in round glasses, reading.

Where the time goes today

  • Comparing invoice lines against orders by hand.
  • Discrepancies found at month end, when they are hardest to trace.
  • The same checks repeated every cycle because nothing remembers the last one.

Illustrative example: an invoice and its approved order disagree

Before

  1. Invoice INV-2041 arrives by email for $4,980. Approved purchase order PO-1187, for the same 120 units, is $4,620.
  2. Someone opens the PDF, finds the order, and compares them line by line in a spreadsheet. The invoice has no order reference, so finding the order takes a while.
  3. The $360 gap turns out to be a price change from last month’s supplier price list. The check is repeated by hand the next time.

With Platypus

  1. Platypus matches the invoice to PO-1187 on supplier, items and quantity, and shows the two side by side.
  2. It pinpoints the difference: the unit price is $41.50 on the invoice and $38.50 on the order, and the supplier’s current price list supports the new price.
  3. It suggests updating the order to the agreed price and flags the price list for review. Finance approves before anything changes, and the invoice then goes through the normal payment process.

How Platypus handles it

An illustrative walkthrough of how Platypus is intended to handle it:

  1. Connect

    Invoices, orders and the spreadsheets used to reconcile them are brought into one view.

  2. Discover

    Discovery agents link each invoice to the order it bills, so the two can be compared line by line.

  3. Spot the problem

    An invoice total and its order disagree. The difference is shown with both records side by side.

  4. Propose a fix

    An agent suggests the correction and notes which record looks out of date.

  5. Review and approve

    Finance reviews the suggestion and decides whether it runs.

  6. Learn

    The linked records are updated together, so the same check does not need repeating.

An illustrative walkthrough of how Platypus is intended to work. What it can connect to depends on the systems and access your team provides.

Every step runs on the same shared context described in how the Platypus platform works.

Limits and human control

  • Platypus does not pay invoices or change supplier details on its own. Payments and master data changes always need approval.
  • When an invoice has no order reference, the match is shown with the reasons for it, for a person to confirm.
  • You decide which record is the source of truth, for example the agreed price list for prices.

For a step-by-step guide, read how to automate invoice reconciliation across business systems.

Questions teams ask

Do we need to replace our existing tools?
Keep the tools your team already uses. Platypus brings their information together so people and agents can work with the same context.
What does Platypus connect to?
Operational systems, databases, spreadsheets, documents and team knowledge. Available connections depend on the systems and access your team provides.
Can we review actions before they run?
Yes. The intended experience lets your team review proposed changes and choose what executes. A demo is the best place to see which actions are supported for your systems today.

More ways to put context to work

We are testing with a small number of teams.