Accounts Payable Management

Overview

Accounts payable (AP) management covers ingesting supplier invoices, matching them against purchase orders and goods receipts, scheduling payments, capturing early-payment discounts, and reconciling against the vendor ledger. For most e-commerce merchants, a dedicated AP tool or accounting software integration handles this far better than custom code.

When to Use This Skill

• When your AP team is manually keying invoices from PDFs into spreadsheets and payment delays are causing vendor friction
• When you need automated three-way matching between purchase orders, goods receipts, and invoices
• When early-payment discounts (e.g., 2/10 net 30) are being missed because payment scheduling is reactive
• When preparing for an ERP integration (NetSuite, SAP, QuickBooks) and need a clean AP data model
• When audit requirements demand an immutable record of every invoice approval, payment authorization, and GL posting

Core Instructions

Step 1: Determine your current setup and choose the right AP tool