Matching Supplier Invoices to POs in Xero: What WA Mining Suppliers Actually Do at Month-End

The cash squeeze

Your Tier 1 client pays on their terms. Fortescue's Australian PO terms, for example, pay a valid invoice by the end of the month after the month it was received. Your subbies and suppliers expect paying on yours. When you can't tell which bills are matched and ready, you either pay late and strain the relationship, or pay early without checking.

Tier 1 portals reject invoices that don't match

The same discipline runs the other way. Fortescue states that invoices are automatically rejected where a valid PO is not referenced, or where the quantity or price exceeds what the PO authorises, and a resubmitted invoice starts its payment terms from the resubmission date. A supplier whose own purchasing runs on Word and Excel is the one most likely to get its PO numbers wrong on the way out.

The Tier 1 audit asks for the approval trail

When BHP, Rio or FMG audits a supplier, “who approved this purchase, and when?” should be a five-minute answer. If the approval was a text message to the ops manager, it is a day in someone's inbox, and it may not be there at all.

The leaks nobody tracks

• Site purchases on a personal card, with the receipt handed in weeks later (or never)
• Invoices with no PO at all, approved because someone remembers ordering something like it
• The same invoice paid twice: once from the emailed PDF, once from the paper copy that came with the delivery

Excel PO register + email

Does: Free, and everyone already knows it.

Stops: Only as current as the last person who updated it. No approval trail, no link to the delivery docket, and every PO is typed again into Xero.

Xero purchase orders

Does: POs with an approval step, emailed as PDFs, turned into a bill that links back to the order. Part-billing by quantity since June 2026.

Stops: Starts when someone in the office raises the PO. No request from site, no routing by amount or project, no separate goods-received record, no mismatch alert.

ApprovalMax

Does: Approval workflows and audit trail on Xero bills and POs. Bill-to-PO matching and goods received notes on the Advanced and Premium plans. Standard from about US$50/month per organisation billed yearly; Advanced from about US$82.50.

Stops: Built around approving and matching documents in Xero, rather than capturing the request from site or reporting spend by Tier 1 client.

Hubdoc / Dext

Does: Bill capture: photograph or email a supplier invoice and the details land in Xero with the PDF attached. Hubdoc is included in most Xero plans; Dext is a paid tool that also reads line items.

Stops: Gets the bill into Xero faster. It does not know whether the bill was approved, ordered or delivered.

Precoro / ProcureDesk

Does: Full purchase-to-pay: requests, approvals, POs, receipts, three-way matching and Xero sync. Precoro Core from US$499/month billed annually; ProcureDesk Startup from US$830/month billed annually.

Stops: Built for US-style finance teams. Capable, but priced and set up for a business with a procurement function, which most $10M–$50M WA suppliers do not have.

ERP (Pronto Xi, SAP Business One)

Does: Purchasing, inventory, matching and accounts in one system.

Stops: Replaces Xero rather than sitting next to it, and is scoped and priced as an implementation project. Worth it if you also need inventory and job costing in one system; more change than most suppliers need just to get purchasing under control.

Does DrilLedger sync with Xero?

Not yet. Xero sync is planned. Today, approved purchase orders are ready for Xero: they go into Xero by hand or by upload, and supplier bills are still entered in Xero the way you enter them now. What changes is everything before that step. Every request, approval and PO is in one register, so what goes into Xero has already been asked for, approved and numbered. Pushing bills into Xero is one of the things we build on your own data during the 3-month free pilot.

Does Xero do three-way matching?

Not as an automatic check. Xero has purchase orders: you can submit a PO for approval, email it to the supplier, and create a bill from an approved PO. The bill links back to the order and carries the PO number, and since June 2026 you can bill part of a PO by quantity. What Xero Central does not describe is a separate goods-received record or an alert when the invoice price or quantity differs from the order. Checking the delivery docket against the invoice is still a person comparing documents.

What is the difference between two-way and three-way matching?

Two-way matching checks the supplier invoice against the purchase order: same supplier, same items, same price, same quantity. Three-way matching adds the goods-received record, so you also check that what you are paying for actually turned up at site. For a supplier with parts going to Newman or Kalgoorlie, the third check is the one that catches short deliveries and back-orders billed in full.

Is ApprovalMax enough for a WA mining supplier?

It can be, if your POs are already raised in Xero and the problem is approvals. ApprovalMax is an approval layer on Xero bills and purchase orders, with an audit trail of who approved what. Bill-to-PO matching and goods received notes need the Advanced or Premium plan. Where it fits less well is the step before the PO: the supervisor at site who needs to ask for something, and the spend-by-client report a Tier 1 client asks for.

What happens in the 3-month free pilot?

We map how purchasing actually runs in your business today, from the supervisor at site to the bill in Xero, and fix the biggest pain first. Purchase requests, the approval trail, the PO register and spend by client or project work from day one. Supplier-invoice matching against the PO and goods received, SMS approvals and Xero bill sync are built and tested on your own suppliers and invoices during the pilot. You see it work in your business before you pay anything.