Finding the Purchase Order
The platform uses the normalized PO Number extracted from the document to look up the corresponding Purchase Order in your ERP via API. The ERP returns the full PO record: expected line items, part numbers, ordered quantities, units of measure, and any other fields your integration is configured to retrieve. ERP Lookup Strategies — configured in Admin > Config > ERP — define the exact order of operations the platform uses when searching for a PO. If your vendors use multiple identifier formats (e.g., internal PO numbers vs. vendor-assigned references), you can configure fallback fields so the platform tries each in sequence before giving up. If no matching Purchase Order is found after exhausting all configured lookup strategies, the document is immediately routed to Needs Review with the status message “PO not found in ERP.” The platform never invents or assumes a PO, if it can’t be confirmed in your system of record, a human makes the call.The platform currently supports ERP lookup and writeback for Odoo, SAP Business One, Oracle NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Line-by-Line Matching
After retrieving the PO, the platform pairs each line item extracted from the packing slip with a corresponding line in the ERP record. Pairing is performed using part number matching, with two modes available: Exact Matching Part number strings must match character-for-character. This is the strictest mode and produces the clearest audit trail, if the vendor’s part number doesn’t exactly equal the ERP part number, the line is flagged as unmatched. Fuzzy Matching A configurable similarity threshold (between 40% and 100%) allows the platform to pair lines where part numbers or descriptions are abbreviated, formatted differently, or contain minor vendor-specific variations. For example, a vendor description of"M8 HEX BOLT 30MM GR8" might fuzzy-match to your ERP’s "Hex Bolt M8x30 Grade 8" at a high similarity score.
Lines on the packing slip that cannot be paired with any ERP line, regardless of matching mode, are flagged as unmatched and always trigger human review.
Quantity Validation
Once each document line is paired with an ERP line, the platform compares the shipped quantity against the ordered quantity. Three validation modes are available: Exact The shipped quantity must equal the ordered quantity precisely. Any deviation, even a single unit, triggers a review flag. Tolerance A configurable percentage range (for example, ±5%) allows minor over- or undershipments without triggering review. A shipment of 52 units against an order of 50 would pass a ±5% tolerance check; a shipment of 44 units would not. Vendor Overrides Specific suppliers can be assigned custom tolerance percentages that override the global default. For example, if Acme Corp consistently ships within ±10% and your team has accepted that arrangement, you can configure an Acme-specific override so those shipments auto-approve without unnecessary review noise.Match Outcomes
The result of the matching stage is a structured status for each line and an overall document-level outcome. Here’s how each scenario is handled:About the Partial Receipt Policy
About the Partial Receipt Policy
When a shipment covers only some of the lines on a PO (a partial shipment), the platform applies your configured Partial Receipt Policy:
- Allow — partial receipts are acceptable; missing lines don’t prevent auto-approval of the lines that did arrive.
- Require Review — any missing PO lines route the document to human review, even if all present lines matched perfectly.
- Reject — partial receipts are not permitted; documents with missing PO lines are rejected outright.
ERP Writeback
When a document is approved, either automatically by the pipeline or manually by a reviewer in the Document Inbox, the platform calls your ERP’s API to create a goods receipt against the Purchase Order. The writeback posts the received quantities to the matched PO lines, partially or fully closing the order depending on what was received. The behavior of this posting is controlled by your writeback configuration:- Draft mode — the goods receipt is created in your ERP as a draft, allowing an ERP user to review and post it manually before it affects inventory. Useful if your ERP workflow requires an internal sign-off step.
- Auto-Validate mode — the goods receipt is created and immediately validated (confirmed and posted to inventory) without any additional steps in the ERP. Controlled by the writeback mode setting in Admin > Config > ERP.
The writeback calls your ERP API in real time at the moment of approval. If the ERP is temporarily unavailable, the writeback will be retried automatically. You can check writeback status on the Document Details page.