How to Create and Review a 3-Way Match

Give it a few moments to process. Once it's done, you can start reviewing.

If you have the auto-approval process set up with tolerance thresholds, matches that fall within those tolerances are approved automatically. Only matches that exceed your thresholds get flagged for review.

💡 Without auto-approval configured, you'll need to manually review every 3-Way Match.

Each flagged match shows you:

Clicking the dropdown gives you a quick preview of the warning.

In the preview, each line item shows the PO quantity and price against the invoice quantity and price, plus the receipt quantity, so you can see at a glance whether the issue is pricing, quantity, or both.

Click the green Review button to open the full view. You'll get:

For a line item where the invoice price is higher than the PO price:

The line item is now marked as an exception.

💡 You can flag multiple exception types on the same line item if needed.

If the PO and invoice match but the receipt quantity is off, that's usually worth a quick check with your warehouse.

Once you've confirmed the correct quantity:

The line item will now show as a match.

When you're ready, you have two options:

If you've confirmed with your supplier that a price increase is legitimate, toggle on Update material prices. This updates the price for that line item in your catalog, so the new price is logged for future orders.

Once you're happy with everything, click Accept match.

The match is now accepted. You can click into the Activity log to see every action taken and drill into the individual transactions.

Back on the main 3-Way Match screen, the match will show as accepted.

✅ Choose "Accept with current statuses" instead of "Mark all as approved" if you plan to bring this up with the supplier.

Once a match is fully approved, it can read as though you've accepted the discrepancy without pushback. Keeping the exception flag preserves the record and still counts toward that supplier's performance scorecard — see Understanding Supplier Performance Analytics in 3-Way Match.

✅ Only toggle "Update material prices" once you've actually confirmed the increase with your supplier.

This updates your catalog cost for future orders — don't apply it just because you're closing out this one match if the price change hasn't actually been verified as legitimate.

✅ Check the Documents tab before flagging an exception, especially if the AI summary's numbers look off — a low-quality scan or fax can occasionally be misread, and it's faster to fix a misread than to open a dispute with a supplier over a data entry issue.

✅ Make sure the PO you're matching against still exists in your account.

If an invoice can't find its PO to match against, you'll hit a "Purchase order not found" error rather than getting to the review screen at all, recreate the PO first if it was deleted.

"I can't even get to a review screen, I'm getting an error before that."

If the error mentions the purchase order not being found, this usually means the PO referenced on the invoice was deleted from your account at some point. Recreate the PO so it exists again, then start the match over. See How to Use Three-Way Match in Ply for more on this.

"My match is stuck instead of showing a review screen."

Give it a few moments after uploading, processing isn't always instant, especially for larger or lower-quality documents. If it's been a while and nothing's showing, double-check all three documents were successfully attached under the Documents tab.

"The AI summary's suggested numbers don't match what I see on the actual invoice."

AI extraction is very accurate but not perfect, especially on low-quality scans or faxed documents. Use the Edit option on the affected line item to correct the misread data rather than flagging it as a supplier discrepancy.

"I flagged an exception, but I'm not sure if I should also correct the quantity."

These are two different situations. A pricing exception (invoice price ≠ PO price) is flagged and kept on record. A receipt discrepancy (the physical count is different from what was invoiced) is corrected directly via "Update match item" once you've confirmed the real quantity, it's not something you flag as an exception, since it's a data correction rather than a supplier dispute.

Can I flag more than one type of exception on the same line item?

Yes, price, quantity, and other exception types can all be applied to the same line if needed.

What's the difference between "Accept with current statuses" and "Mark all as approved"?

The first keeps any exception flags in place (counting toward the supplier's scorecard); the second clears all discrepancies as approved, signaling you've accepted them without pushback.

Does updating material prices during a match affect past POs too?

No, it updates the catalog cost going forward for future orders. It doesn't retroactively change anything on POs that already exist.