Supplier invoice audit on every line, against the contract, before the money leaves
Every invoice line checked against its contract, rate card and PO, and overcharges held before the money leaves.
See one case, screen by screen ↓A CRO’s invoice for one month of monitoring and site management runs to ten lines and $432,490. Checking it properly means the master services agreement, the SOW and its amendments, this year’s signed rate card, the escalation cap, the visit log, the active-site list and every pass-through receipt — before Thursday’s payment run. With hundreds of invoices a week, there is time to match the PO and the total, and the rest is paid.
What slips through is small on each line and large across a year: an hourly rate a few dollars above the rate card, a volume tier that was never applied, a handling fee the contract rules out, a visit that was cancelled, a business-class fare nobody approved, a rebate that was never credited. When it is found, it is found after payment — and the money has to be argued back, one letter at a time.
Estimated split for one complex services invoice, in hours, by hand and with the solution.
Specialist agents read every invoice, gather the contract terms, check each line and draft the dispute letter; the payables audit lead decides each finding.
Quillon Clinical Research bills $432,490.00 for September’s monitoring and site management on study VLT-302. The payment run is tomorrow at 14:00. Here is what happens, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Priya opens the leakage desk 28 hours before Thursday’s run. This week: 245 invoices, $21.75M, 6,858 lines checked. 236 are released clean, 5 are held for her with $45.4K in findings, 1 duplicate is blocked and 3 arrived this morning, still to check.
“Lines checked 100% — no sampling · Median arrival to verdict 4 min”
The invoice came in on the e-invoicing network at 07:12. The Invoice reader read its 10 lines and payment terms, the Contract terms librarian assembled MSA-0417 — 13 terms, each with its clause — and the Three-way matcher found PO 4500-8790, 12 completed visits in the visit log and 38 active sites. Between them, the matcher and the checkers found five lines above the contract and a payment-terms note, and the invoice was held.
“Priya Raman decides — 6 of 6 decisions open · $17,233.60 held”
486 clinical research associate hours are billed at $168.00. Exhibit B, the 2026 rate card signed Jan 9, sets $160.00. $168.00 is 8.2% above the 2025 rate of $155.34 — beyond the §4.3 cap of the lesser of CPI-U or 3% — and no change order lists another rate.
486 h × ($168.00 − $160.00) = $3,888.00 above the contract
§5.4 bills completed monitoring visits only, as recorded in the visit log. The September log from the clinical trial system shows 12: the Site 118 visit on Sep 24 was cancelled when the site closed for an audit, and the Site 131 visit moved to Oct 6 — it belongs on the October invoice.
“Quantities come from delivery records, not from the invoice”
All 38 active sites are billed a site management fee of $1,150. Amendment 2 to the SOW added a lower fee: $1,150 for sites 1 to 30 and $980 for each active site above 30. The active-site list for Sep 30 shows 38, so 8 of them are billable at $980 — $1,360.00 above the contract.
Central lab kits are billed at the lab’s receipt, $58,420.00 — and then an 8% handling fee of $4,673.60 on top, which §7.2 rules out. On travel, two business-class fares, Boston–Chicago and Newark–Atlanta, are both under three hours; §7.4 allows economy under six hours and no written approval is on file, so $2,412.00 above the economy fares is not reimbursable.
“A missing receipt is a question, not a finding”
The invoice asks for payment by Oct 31. §9.1 gives 60 days from receipt of a correct invoice, and it was received Oct 7 — so the undisputed amount is due Dec 6, 2026. It is not an overcharge, so it is offered as a choice: pay on contract terms, or pay as invoiced.
For every finding Priya can dispute and withhold, accept with a reason that goes into the audit trail, or ask the category manager. She reviews the suggestions and applies them, then opens the short-pay: $432,490.00 billed, $17,233.60 withheld on five disputed items, $415,256.40 payable on Dec 6. The Dispute letter writer drafts the letter from the disputed items only.
Above $10,000, the category manager co-signs: Omar Haddad.
Priya approves, Omar co-signs, and the letter goes to Quillon’s billing team: each line, the clause and the amount, the undisputed amount and the date it will be paid, and a request for a credit note or corrected invoice within 30 days. The short-pay posts to the ERP after approval, and the claim moves to Recoveries as sent to the supplier.
“Letter sent to billing@quillon-cr.example · $415,256.40 scheduled for Dec 6, 2026”
The Monday sweep through 24 months of paid invoices checked 31 contracts with a volume rebate clause. Quillon’s 2025 fees across three SOWs came to $11,860,000; §9.5 gives a 1.2% rebate once a year passes $10,000,000, due by March 31, and no credit note is in the ERP. The $142,320.00 claim is drafted, not sent — over $100,000, Omar Haddad and Dana Okafor co-sign after Priya.
The same invoice, seen by the five people who carry it — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Specialist agents read every invoice, gather the contract terms, check each line and draft the dispute letter; the payables audit lead decides each finding.
Reads PDF and e-invoices — header, lines, quantities, rates, tax and payment terms — and cites each field.
Finds the supplier’s agreement, SOWs, amendments, rate cards and rebate schedules, and keeps a terms sheet with clause citations.
Matches each line to the PO, the goods receipt or service entry, and delivery records such as the visit log.
Checks the arithmetic on every line: contracted rate, escalation cap, volume tiers, discounts and index-linked surcharges.
Checks pass-through costs against receipts, markups and handling fees, travel class and fees the contract does not allow.
Looks back 24 months of paid invoices for duplicates and compares the invoice’s payment terms with the contract.
Drafts a courteous dispute or claim letter from the items a person disputed, citing each clause.
Decides each finding, approves the letter. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any invoice, supplier or contract term — or tell it what to check. Every answer cites the invoice line and the clause behind it.
Why is the Quillon invoice on hold?
INV-24117 bills $432,490.00. Five lines differ from MSA-0417 by $17,233.60: the CRA rate at $168 against $160 ($3,888.00), 14 visits billed with 12 completed ($4,900.00), sites above 30 not at $980 ($1,360.00), an 8% handling fee on pass-through ($4,673.60) and business-class fares ($2,412.00). It also asks for Net 30; the contract gives Net 60, so the undisputed $415,256.40 is due Dec 6.
Which suppliers leak the most this quarter?
By share of audited spend over the last 90 days: Harborline 2.8%, Summit 2.4%, Kestrel 2.2%, Quillon 1.9%, Alder Peak 1.6%. Harborline leaks most often — fuel surcharges above the index band. Quillon leaks the most money, about $593K: rates above the 2026 card and handling fees on pass-through costs.
Add a check: hold CRO invoices that bill more visits than the visit log
Done. New check: visits billed against the visit log — on every CRO invoice, the billed on-site visits are compared with the visits marked completed in the clinical trial system for the same period. On this week’s invoices it matches one: INV-24117, 14 billed against 12 completed, already held. The check is live in Settings and recorded in the audit trail.
Draft the 2025 rebate claim to Quillon
Drafted RC-121 to Quillon Clinical Research for $142,320.00. In 2025 we paid $11,860,000 across three SOWs; §9.5 gives a 1.2% rebate once a year passes $10,000,000, due by March 31. No credit note is in the ERP. Because it is over $100,000, Omar Haddad and Dana Okafor co-sign after you.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The payment run, the hold threshold, the approvers and the checks are settings, not a project.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Payment run | Thursdays, 14:00 | Thursdays, 14:00 · Tuesdays and Thursdays, 14:00 · Daily, 16:00 |
| Hold an invoice when its findings reach | $250 | $250 · $1,000 · $5,000 — below it, paid and claimed back afterwards |
| Rounding tolerance per line | $0.50 | $0 · $0.50 · $1 · $5 |
| Release clean invoices automatically | On | On · Off — every invoice waits for a person |
| Letters up to $10,000 | Priya Raman | Priya Raman · Lena Ortiz |
| $10,000 to $100,000 — co-signs | Omar Haddad | Omar Haddad (clinical & manufacturing) · Lena Ortiz (indirect) |
| Over $100,000 — co-signs as well | Dana Okafor | Dana Okafor, finance controller |
| Checks on every line | Rates · tiers · delivered · pass-through · duplicates · terms | Switch each on or off, or describe a new one in plain words |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample invoices and contracts · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate. People, suppliers and the company named on this page are characters in the working solution.
Software that checks each supplier invoice line against what the contract allows — rates and rate cards, escalation caps, volume tiers, discounts, rebates, pass-through rules and payment terms — and holds the lines that differ. The Invoice-to-Contract Auditor does this on every line of every invoice before the payment run, and drafts the dispute letter for a person to approve.
A three-way match checks the invoice against the PO and the goods receipt. This also reads the contract: the signed rate card for the year, the cap on increases, the tier that applies above 30 sites, the no-markup clause, the travel class. For services it checks delivery records too, such as completed visits in the visit log.
No. Connections to the ERP are read-only, and a short-pay or a new payment date posts only after a person approves it. A person decides every finding and approves every supplier letter, with co-signers by amount.
Yes. A weekly sweep checks paid invoices from the last 24 months for rebates and volume tiers that were never credited, and drafts a recovery claim with the clause and the evidence. Claims are tracked from the letter to the supplier’s credit note.
Yes. The Duplicate & terms sentinel looks back over 24 months of paid invoices and blocks a duplicate before payment — for example a re-sent invoice for the same lot, tests and dates as one already paid. It never cancels a paid invoice.
Yes. The payment run, the amount of findings at which an invoice is held, the rounding tolerance, whether clean invoices release automatically, who approves letters at each amount and which checks run are all settings. New checks can be described in plain words.
Invoice fields read below 0.90 confidence go to a person, unreadable fields are flagged rather than guessed, and a missing receipt becomes a question for the supplier rather than a finding. Each finding shows its confidence and the agent that found it.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements — your contracts, rate cards, approval rules and a sample of past invoices — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own invoices first.
Every CRO bid re-priced to the study you asked for and compared like for like, each number traced to its page.
1-min filmContract RegisterEvery supplier contract, acquired ones included, becomes one register of terms and deadlines, each value linked to its page.
1-min filmProcurement Front DoorAnyone asks in plain words, and every request takes the right way to buy and reaches a purchase order in under two days.
1-min filmWe’ll run the Invoice-to-Contract Auditor on a sample of your own invoices and contracts.