Invoice-PO Matching: A Dust Agent That Finds Invoices Without a Purchase Order in 30 Seconds
Invoices without an associated purchase order are the leading cause of supplier disputes and payment delays. A Dust agent shared across the procurement team identifies them automatically and prioritises the most urgent cases.
The Problem
An invoice without an associated purchase order is a procurement red flag. It can indicate a purchase made outside the approved process (maverick spend), a coding error, or a supplier invoicing before a PO has been raised. In every case, it creates an immediate operational problem: without a reference PO, Finance cannot validate the invoice, which blocks payment and triggers supplier escalations.
Invoice-PO matching is one of the foundational controls in the procure-to-pay cycle. Yet in practice, it is rarely systematic. Procurement teams manually review cases flagged by Finance, but without a global view of unmatched invoices, anomalies accumulate. A recurring supplier who consistently sends invoices before a PO is created builds a silent debt in the process.
The financial stakes are real: invoices without POs delay payments, increase the risk of duplicate payments, and potentially signal unauthorised off-budget spending. A monthly review of unmatched invoices is the basis of effective internal controls — but it takes time to do manually.
A Dust agent shared across the whole procurement team
The Spendesk MCP is connected once, workspace-wide, by an admin. A Dust agent configured for this check is then available to the whole procurement team and to Finance — no need for one controller to rebuild the same cross-reference every month.
Identify all approved invoices this month without an associated purchase order. Sort by amount descending.
I cross-referenced invoices approved in July 2026 against existing purchase orders.
9 approved invoices with no PO — July 2026:
| Supplier | Invoice | Amount (incl. VAT) | Approved On | Payment Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accenture France | INV-2026-05201 | €24,800 | 02/07/2026 | Pending |
| Manpower | INV-2026-05198 | €18,400 | 01/07/2026 | Pending |
| Deloitte | INV-2026-05215 | €12,600 | 04/07/2026 | Pending |
| Sodexo | INV-2026-05187 | €8,900 | 28/06/2026 | Pending |
| Colt Technology | INV-2026-05224 | €6,200 | 05/07/2026 | Scheduled 10/07 |
| Expensya | INV-2026-05209 | €3,400 | 03/07/2026 | Pending |
| Typeform | INV-2026-05241 | €1,200 | 07/07/2026 | Pending |
| Docusign | INV-2026-05233 | €980 | 06/07/2026 | Pending |
| Canva | INV-2026-05247 | €360 | 08/07/2026 | Pending |
Would you like me to identify recurring suppliers who consistently send invoices without a prior PO?
Going Further: 2 Additional Use Cases
Recurring Suppliers With Systematic PO Gaps
Some suppliers have a recurring pattern: they invoice before a PO is raised. Identifying these cases enables a targeted conversation to correct the process at its source.
Which suppliers regularly send invoices without a prior purchase order?
I analysed the past 6 months (January–June 2026) to identify suppliers with more than one invoice missing a PO.
Recurring suppliers with no PO — 6-month analysis:
| Supplier | Total Invoices | Invoices Without PO | Rate Without PO | Amount Affected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manpower | 12 | 9 | 75% 🔴 | €87,400 |
| Sodexo | 6 | 5 | 83% 🔴 | €32,100 |
| Accenture France | 4 | 3 | 75% 🔴 | €58,200 |
| Expensya | 6 | 2 | 33% 🟡 | €6,800 |
| Colt Technology | 6 | 2 | 33% 🟡 | €9,400 |
Would you like me to generate a PO non-compliance report to share with the relevant department heads?
Purchase Orders Open More Than 90 Days With No Invoice
Long-open POs without an associated invoice represent frozen commitments on the balance sheet that can distort cash flow projections.
Are there any purchase orders open for more than 90 days with no invoice received?
I identified 7 purchase orders open for more than 90 days (before 10/04/2026) with no invoice received:
| PO | Supplier | Committed Amount | Created On | Days Open | Requester |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PO-2026-0142 | IBM France | €48,000 | 05/01/2026 | 185 days | IT — Christophe Maire |
| PO-2026-0198 | Capgemini | €32,000 | 15/01/2026 | 175 days | CTO — Laure Fontaine |
| PO-2026-0267 | Atos SE | €18,500 | 02/02/2026 | 157 days | IT — Christophe Maire |
| PO-2026-0341 | Kyndryl | €12,400 | 28/02/2026 | 131 days | IT Ops |
| PO-2026-0389 | Teleperformance | €9,800 | 15/03/2026 | 116 days | CS — Marc Jouve |
| PO-2026-0412 | Adecco | €7,200 | 20/03/2026 | 111 days | HR — Sandra Klein |
| PO-2026-0448 | Bureau Veritas | €4,100 | 01/04/2026 | 99 days | Quality |
Would you like me to sort these POs by requester to make internal follow-ups easier?
Automating the weekly check
Once this check has been validated manually, a weekly Trigger can re-run the analysis every Monday morning and post the result to #procurement via @Dust — Finance and procurement see anomalies before the payment batch, without anyone having to remember.
Key Takeaways
- A Dust agent published on the workspace saves everyone from rebuilding the same invoice/PO cross-reference in a spreadsheet each month.
- A PO compliance rate below 90% signals a procurement process failure —
get_payables+get_purchase_ordersmeasure it in a single question. - Recurring suppliers with PO gaps are often service partners (consulting, staffing, facilities) — the root cause is an internal process failure, not a supplier issue.
- POs open more than 90 days with no invoice distort cash flow projections and must be confirmed or closed.
- A weekly Trigger turns this check into a recurring automatic check, shared by the whole team.
Related skills
Match invoices against purchase orders by supplier, identify invoices without a PO, budget overruns, and POs with no recent activity.
Detect out-of-policy purchases made with non-preferred suppliers and measure procurement policy compliance rate.