Checking a supplier statement

Summary

Every month your factors send a statement listing what they say you owe. Checking it by hand is slow and it is where invoices go missing. Purchases > Supplier statements does the comparison for you: it reads the statement and tells you which lines you already hold, which are sitting unentered in your scan inbox, and which you genuinely need to ask the supplier for.

Nothing is posted to your books. Capturing a statement only records what the supplier says. No invoice is ever created from one, because a statement line has no VAT breakdown and you cannot reclaim VAT off it.

Prerequisites

• Your suppliers set up. See Supplier management.
• Invoice-capture permission to capture a statement. Without it you can still read one and copy the chase list.

Steps

Get a statement in

There is no manual entry. A statement has to arrive as a document.

1. Upload it with the document type set to Supplier statement.
2. Give the supplier a scan address for statements, and they land automatically. See Scan addresses.

A long statement is read one page at a time, so it can take a few minutes. Nothing is missing while it says Reading the statement, there is just nothing to show until every page is in.

Capture it

1. Open the statement from To capture.
2. Check Which supplier is this?. Torqueflow often matches it for you, from the name, the VAT number, or your account number on last month’s statement, and says which it used.
3. The coverage list appears underneath. Review it.
4. Select Capture statement.

The confirm step tells you the shape of it in one line: how many lines, how many already entered, how many sitting in your scan inbox, and how many are not in Torqueflow at all.

Find a statement you have captured

The statements page has two tables: Statements to capture and Captured statements.

1. Filter by supplier. Above the Captured statements table, pick a supplier from Filter by supplier. Each supplier shows how many captured statements it has. A line reads, for example, “Showing 3 of 27 statements”. Choose All suppliers to clear it.
2. Sort by any column. Click a column heading on either table. Date columns sort newest first on the first click. Everything else sorts A to Z or smallest first. Click again to reverse.
3. Open the supplier. Each captured row has a Supplier record link, which opens that supplier’s page showing their statements. You only see it if you can view purchases.

The supplier filter applies to Captured statements only. Statements still waiting to be captured have not been matched to a supplier yet, so they are not filtered.

The view is kept in the address bar. The tab, the supplier filter and both sorts survive a refresh, and you can bookmark the page or send the link to someone. The page lists the newest 500 captured statements. If you have more, it says so and points you to each supplier’s own record for older ones.

Read the groups

This is the part that does the work. Lines are grouped by what you need to do about them.

1. Already entered. You have the invoice and the amount agrees. Nothing to do.
2. Amounts do not match. You have the invoice, but the statement disagrees with what you entered. The group header shows how much you are out by.
3. Ask the supplier for these. Not in Torqueflow, and not in your scan inbox either. These are the ones to chase.
4. In your scan inbox, not entered yet. You already have these. Enter them, do not chase them. They are never included when you copy a list for the supplier.
5. Not yet entered. You hold the paperwork but have not captured it.
6. Not chased. Payments, finance charges, rebates and brought-forward balances. These are not invoices, so there is nothing to ask for.
7. Needs a look. The reader could not tell what the line is. These are never counted as missing and never sent to the supplier.

Groups 3 and 4 are the ones people get wrong. Both look like a gap. One means ring the supplier, the other means do your own filing.

Chase what is missing

1. Select the copy button on the Ask the supplier for these group.
2. Paste the list into an email to your factor.
3. Confirm you have copied it. The lines are stamped Chased with the date and drop below the rest of the list.

Nothing is marked as chased until you say you have copied it. Lines with no number or no amount are left out and the dialog tells you how many.

Correct a misread line

The reader occasionally gets a line wrong: a lost minus sign, a torn cell, a misread digit. Three corrections are available on the line itself.

1. Change what this line is. Use it when an invoice was read as a credit note, or the other way round, or a line sits under Needs a look.
2. Edit the document number. Use it when the number on the statement was misread, so a line you hold shows as missing.
3. Correct the amount. Use it when the figure itself is wrong, or could not be read at all.

Your Chased stamps survive a correction. As soon as the lines add up to the stated total again, chasing and paying both switch back on. There is no need to scan the statement again.

Correct an amount

1. Select Correct the amount on the line.
2. Type the figure. How you type it depends on what the line is:
   • An invoice or a credit note: type the figure without a sign. The line type decides whether it is a charge or a credit.
   • Any other line (payments, finance charges, rebates, balances): type it as the statement prints it, minus sign included.
3. Check the Will be saved as preview under the box, then select Save.

A corrected line carries an Edited marker.

Two rules apply.

1. Zero is not accepted on an invoice or credit note line. A statement never lists a document at nothing. If nothing is due on a document, untick it when you build the payment instead.
2. Changing the line type can change the direction of the money. If it does, you are asked for the amount in the same step, so the line never ends up pointing the wrong way.

A line that runs the opposite way to its label

Sometimes an invoice line shows as money back, or a credit note as money owed. Torqueflow will not guess which is wrong. Two one-click fixes are shown on the row: It is a credit note for [amount] and It is an invoice for [amount]. Pick the one that matches the paper.

Lost minus signs

If the “does not add up” message shows a difference of exactly twice one line’s amount, that line’s minus sign was probably lost. Correct that line’s amount or type.

A line a payment has already used

If a bulk payment already used the line, the row says so, for example “Paid at £120.00 in the payment of 12/09/2026”. The editor warns “Changing the amount does not change the payment.” After you save, the message tells you the payment has not changed. If the payment was wrong, reverse it and record it again. The payment itself then shows a note saying what the statement now says. If you had already chased the supplier for that document, tell them the corrected figure.

Pay it

Select Pay this statement to record one bank payment against it. See Paying a supplier with one payment.

Expected Outcome

• A statement captured against the right supplier, with nothing posted to your books.
• A clear split between invoices to chase and invoices to enter.
• A chase list you can paste straight into an email, with a dated stamp on what you have already asked for.

Notes

• A statement that does not add up cannot be chased or paid. If the lines do not come to the statement’s own stated total, Torqueflow says so and switches off both chasing and paying, because a misread line would mean chasing an invoice you already have or paying the wrong figure. Correct the lines first. See Correct a misread line.
• Older statements re-list the same items. A statement is a running-account snapshot, so last month’s will show the same open invoices. Only the current one can be chased, and older ones are badged Superseded with a link to the current one.
• Some suppliers do not print a total. Then there is nothing to check the lines against, and Torqueflow says so rather than pretending it verified anything.
• The totals cover the whole statement. Filtering the list does not change them, and does not change what you copy.

Troubleshooting

Problem: Why did my statement not create any invoices? Cause: By design. A statement line carries no VAT breakdown, so an invoice built from one would be unreclaimable. Fix: Enter the invoices themselves, by scan or by hand.

Problem: “This looks like a supplier statement, but it was not read as one.” Cause: It arrived without the statement type set, so the invoice reader looked at it. Fix: Check the document first. The page shows a preview of the file (with Open in new tab) and what the reader already found: supplier, total, document date and due date. If it is a statement, select Read it as a statement. That runs the page-by-page reader over every page and uses credits, so a long statement costs more than a short one.

Problem: “No captured statements for this supplier.” Cause: The supplier filter is on. The link you opened or the view you bookmarked carries a supplier. Fix: Select Show all suppliers.

Problem: A line says “Edited” and I did not change it. Cause: Someone corrected the amount on that line. The audit log records who. Fix: Check it against the paper statement.

Problem: “That amount is larger than a statement line can hold.” Cause: A figure over 99,999,999.99 was typed, usually a slip. Fix: Retype the amount.

Problem: An invoice is in “Ask the supplier for these” but I know we have it. Cause: Either the document number on the statement differs from the one you entered, or it is filed under a different supplier. Fix: Use Edit the document number on the line. Check the filter box by number or registration first.

Problem: “You have already sent this statement.” Cause: It is a byte-for-byte copy of one already in Torqueflow, so it was not read again. Fix: Open the original.

Problem: A page could not be read, so nothing was captured. Cause: Deliberate. A partly-read statement would show gaps that are not real. Fix: Try reading it again, which re-runs every page and uses credits.

Problem: The list says some invoices may be shown as missing when they are not. Cause: The statement covers more invoices than can be compared in one go. Fix: Check the ones you doubt by hand before chasing them.