A 15-minute invoice review that catches what audits miss
Five checks, in order, that surface pricing errors before they reach your books.
A restaurant receiving 40 supplier invoices a month with a 2% line-error rate has roughly one error per week hiding somewhere between the quoted price and what was charged. Most are small: a case price updated without notice, a substitution invoiced at the premium item's price, a returned product whose credit never arrived. Individually forgettable; together they are a quiet tax on margin. The checklist below exists to find them while a credit is still cheap to claim.
The five checks, in order
- Order matters. Matching comes first because an invoice that doesn't match its documents needs no line-level analysis — it needs a phone call.
- Prices before totals. Suppliers change list prices mid-contract more often than either side admits; the total can look plausible while two lines are wrong.
- Physical truth beats paper. Quantity checks happen where the goods are, not at the office desk.
A worked example
Friday delivery: 12×1L olive oil invoiced at €54.00 (quoted €52.80), 4kg of salmon invoiced but 3.6kg received, and last week's returned 2 cases of wine with no credit memo attached.
| Olive oil 12×1L | €54.00 vs €52.80 quoted | €1.20/case overcharge — 12 cases = €14.40 |
|---|---|---|
| Salmon 4.0kg invoiced | 3.6kg on the scale | 0.4kg × €18/kg = €7.20 variance |
| Wine return credit | missing from this invoice | 2 × €38.50 = €77.00 owed |
Three findings, roughly €98 of exposure on a single delivery. None would reverse themselves at month-end.
Making it stick
- 1Fix the moment. Same time each week, before invoices enter accounting. Reviewing after entry means correcting entries instead of catching errors.
- 2Keep evidence with the finding. Photograph scales, note the quoted price beside the invoiced one. Claims with evidence get credited; claims without get sympathy.
- 3Escalate patterns, not incidents. One overcharge is noise; the third on the same supplier line is a conversation. Track findings by supplier so repetition becomes visible.
- 4Close the loop monthly. At the spend review, check which flagged items were actually credited. An unresolved flag is money still on the table.
FAQ
- Isn't this what invoice-matching software does?
- Matching software automates check 1 and partially check 2, which is why we built Comandero around it. The checklist remains useful for the parts automation struggles with: physical quantities, missing credits, and terms drift.
- Who should run the review?
- Whoever receives the goods and sees the delivery note — often a head chef — with escalation to whoever owns supplier relationships. Separating receiver from payer is itself fraud hygiene.
- How long until it pays off?
- Restaurants running structured reviews typically find their first recoverable error inside the first month. The habit matters more than any single catch.
- What do I do with repeat offenders?
- Documented, repeated discrepancies justify renegotiation or switching. That decision belongs in supplier consolidation planning, backed by the record you have now built.
Keep reading
- Invoice matching issues and how to fix each one
The six ways a three-way match breaks — duplicate invoices, phantom vendors, price drift, quantity gaps, substitution fraud, and statement mismatches.
- Sharing invoice data without sharing what shouldn't leave the building
What to strip before invoices go to advisors, benchmarking services, or AI tools — and how to keep a redacted copy that still answers purchasing questions.
- The monthly supplier spend review that actually changes decisions
A one-hour routine: reconcile, rank, compare, and decide — turning supplier invoices into next month's purchasing moves.
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