Procurement & spend
Control spend before it
becomes a liability
Govern purchasing from request and approval through order, receipt, invoice, payable and payment — with authority and evidence carried throughout.
Procure to pay
From business need to approved spend, received value and governed payment
The top level is what the business does. The level beneath is the governed consequence SynqLedger produces at the same moment — commitment, receipt, accrual, payable and finally cash.
- Business need
- Requisition
- ApprovalAuthority recorded
- Purchase orderCommitment recorded
- ReceiptStock or expense, accrual raised
- Supplier invoiceInput VAT where applicable
- MatchAccrual cleared on match
- Payment approvalPayable open item
- SettlementLiability cleared, cash resolved
Where control begins
No invoice arrives as a surprise.
Control starts at the request and the approval, not at data entry. By the time an invoice appears, the business already knows what was authorised and what was received.
Approval & authority
Know who requested it, who approved it and what was actually authorised
The requester, the policy applied, the approver and the authorised amount travel with the purchase. Approval is part of the transaction's own history rather than documentation reconstructed later.
- Requisition and approval happen before the commitment is made
- Authority is recorded against the order, the supplier and the amount
- Evidence stays with the transaction through receipt, invoice and payment
- Requested by
- Operations supervisor
- Business reason
- Line 2 maintenance materials
- Policy applied
- Capital and consumables policy
- Approved by
- Plant manager
- Authorised amount
- £48,500
- Purchase order
- PO-2027-0418
- Supplier
- Ardent Industrial Supply
- Evidence
- Carried with the transaction
Illustrative composition — not supplier data.
Three-way match
Purchase order, receipt and supplier invoice compared before payment
Quantity and value differences are surfaced as explicit exceptions rather than disappearing into payables. Nothing is silently absorbed, and the accrual clears when the match is proved.
- Quantity
- 400 units
- Value
- £48,000.00
- Quantity
- 380 units
- Value
- £45,600.00
- Quantity
- 400 units
- Value
- £49,200.00
- Quantity difference
- 20 units not received
- Price difference
- £3.00 per unit above order
- Match status
- Exception — visible before payment
- Payment
- Held until the exception is resolved
Illustrative composition — not supplier data.
Supplier position
One supplier relationship from commitment to cash
Orders, receipts, invoices, outstanding payables, due dates and payment status read from the same governed authorities that produce the accounts.
Commitment and receipt
- Open purchase orders
- 4 · £212,400
- Received, not yet invoiced
- £36,900
- Invoices matched
- 11 this quarter
- Exceptions open
- 1 price difference
Liability and payment
- Outstanding payable
- £128,650
- Due within 7 days
- £41,300
- Approved for payment
- £38,200
- Paid this month
- £96,500
- Payables control
- Agrees to subledger
Spend visibility
Governed purchasing is what makes spend readable
Because commitment, receipt and matched invoice are governed events, spend can be read by supplier, category, entity and period — separating what has been committed from what has actually been incurred and what is still owed.
| Category | Committed | Actual spend | Outstanding payable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw materials | £412,000 | £368,400 | £96,200 |
| Maintenance & spares | £128,500 | £104,900 | £28,650 |
| Logistics | £86,300 | £82,150 | £14,700 |
| Professional services | £54,000 | £41,000 | £9,300 |
Read from committed orders, receipts and matched invoices by supplier, category, entity and period — illustrative composition, not supplier data.
Procurement and Payments
Procurement determines what is owed. Payments governs how money leaves.
They are deliberately separate authorities. Procurement proves the obligation; SynqLedger Payments executes it under policy and approval, and the accounting is produced from the settlement.
Procurement decides
What the business owes
Requisition, approval, order, receipt and matching establish the obligation and prove it. Nothing becomes payable that did not pass that chain.
SynqLedger Payments governs
Available nowHow authorised money leaves
Proposal, policy, maker-checker approval, instruction and settlement — with the accounting produced from the settlement rather than typed after it.
- 01
Approved obligation
Determined by procurement
- 02
Payment proposal
Prepared from what is due
- 03
Policy
Limits and destination rules applied
- 04
Maker-checker
Second approver required
- 05
Instruction
Sent to the bank
- 06
Settlement
Confirmed by the bank
- 07
Accounting
Produced from settlement
- 08
Reconciliation
Payable cleared to cash
Working capital
Purchase commitments become the cash requirement
What has been ordered, what has been received and what is due to suppliers feed the same working-capital position as stock, receivables and cash.
- 01
Purchase commitment
Ordered and approved
- 02
Inventory or expense
Recognised on receipt
- 03
Payable
Open item with a due date
- 04
Payment
Settled under policy
- 05
Cash
One working-capital position
Cash requirement
Supplier liabilities are part of the same cash story
Due dates, approved payments and outstanding payables are measured on the same basis as the rest of the working-capital cycle, drawn from the same governed evidence.
Connected across the platform
Where the spend chain hands over
Each hand-off is a governed step in the same record — procurement never writes payable status directly, and payables never take ownership of stock, assets or projects.
Business outcomes
What changes for the business
Control spend before commitment
The request and the approval happen before the order is placed, so the business decides what it is committing to rather than discovering it later.
Know what was ordered, received and invoiced
Order, receipt and supplier invoice sit on the same chain, so the three views of one purchase can always be compared.
See liabilities as they arise
Receipt creates the position and matching proves it, so the payable reflects the goods and services actually received.
Pay only what passed the governed process
Exceptions are visible and explicit before settlement, and payment clears the liability it was approved against.
See the spend chain on your own purchasing
A guided walkthrough of requisition, approval, order, receipt, matching, payables and governed payment.