10 — Documents
CoderConda automates the checking of incoming invoices: each one is checked on arrival against the order and the delivery note, for €895 one-off per document route, not per document. Every incoming invoice gets read, and nothing gets found that way, because a single value cannot be wrong.
Checked on arrival, not at the month-end close.
Document RE-88213 · example5 fields
06Net total€116.00
0 of 5 checkable0 discrepancies5 of 5 checkable0 discrepancies5 of 5 checkable1 discrepancy
5 of 5 checkable, 1 discrepancy
02 — The comparison
01 — The invoice alone
Supplier identified, number read, amounts extracted, total adds up. Every piece of software gets this far, and so does every person who looks at it. Nothing gets found, and that is not for lack of looking: a single value cannot be wrong, because nothing contradicts it.
Extraction is not a check. It is transcription.
02 — The order
The order says what was agreed: supplier, order number, article, quantity, rate. Every line becomes checkable, and every line passes. This is where most checks stop, and this is exactly where the error on this invoice gets through.
Two columns, five checks, no discrepancy.
03 — The delivery note
The delivery note says what arrived, and it says something else. Forty metres are being charged, thirty-eight were delivered. Invoice and order still agree, because both descend from the order. The discrepancy was there the whole time; until now the only thing missing was the paper that shows it.
Not a closer look. Something to compare against.
04 — The arithmetic
Quantity times rate gives the total, the tax is right, not a cent is missing. The arithmetic passes, and that is why it is no comfort: a document can be perfectly consistent in itself and still charge for two metres too many. The fourth check does not ask whether it calculates correctly, but with what.
A consistent document is not a correct one.
Stage 1 of 4
Document RE-88213 · example5 fields
06Net total€116.00
0 of 5 checkable0 discrepancies5 of 5 checkable0 discrepancies5 of 5 checkable1 discrepancy
5 of 5 checkable, 1 discrepancy
03 — The threshold
After four stages it seems obvious to stop every discrepancy. A system that does this blocks the payment run in week two and gets switched off. One that merely flags instead produces four notices per document, and after a month everybody clicks them away.
Eight documents
Without a threshold
Every discrepancy stops the document, including two cents of rounding. The payment run halts, and in week three somebody switches the check off.
Notices only
Nothing stops, everything carries a little flag. It looks like control and is none: whatever always lights up, nobody reads after four weeks.
With a threshold
One stops, seven go through. Which one is decided by a figure from your own last quarter, not by a default setting.
The rule
A check without a threshold stops everything or nothing. The threshold belongs to the company, not to the software.
That is why the first question at setup is not what the system can do, but which discrepancy actually annoyed you last quarter.
04 — The evidence
Three sources that have to say the same thing, and a log for the case where they do not: that is not only the shape of this page, it is an integration that has been running since 2023, built before CoderConda. There the three columns have different names.
The three columns there
in service since2023ERP-Integration
What it does not prove
It is not an invoice inbox. What it proves is reconciliation between systems, not the reading of a crooked document. The same case appears on a second page of this site, there for its longevity.
3 · The three columns there
05 — The price
This offer replaces a running cost you already have. It appears in no ledger, but it can be worked out from last quarter. All prices are final prices. No VAT is charged under § 19 UStG.
What it costs today
Four items from your own last quarter. I do not write the figures beside them, because they are yours.
What it costs then
The rule
If the left column is smaller than the right one, I turn the job down. That happens, and you hear it before the quote, not after.
06 — The intake
Documents arrive as email attachments, as photos from a site, as files from a portal and as paper in the scanner. Three of those routes have no folder and no date today. Afterwards all four have the same one.
In
One intake
A received date, the untouched original, one case per document.
Out
A checked record and the original document, in the format your accounting or your accountant expects. The booking happens there, not here.
DATEV · CSV · API
If the bottleneck is not the incoming document but the outgoing quote, the work sits one step earlier. And if you first need to know which steps should exist at all, invoices are not where you start.
If the quote goes out too late rather than the document arriving too late.
If it first has to be settled which steps should exist at all.
4 · In
07 — The objections
Every one of these four objections is right. Two of them are right from beginning to end, and the answer does not contradict them. For the other two it says beside them where it tips over.
01“We do not have purchase orders at all.”entirely
Then one of the three columns is missing, and that is not a detail. The check runs against other things: a framework contract, last month, a cost centre. Less sharp, and I say so first.
02“Our invoices are PDFs, anything reads those.”up to here
Reading really is solved, you are right there. It tips over one step later: a document carries three figures that could be the net amount, and only one of them is.
03“Our accountant takes care of that.”entirely
And they carry on doing it, nothing changes there. But they book what they are given. What never reaches them, or reaches them twice, they see last.
04“This has to survive an audit.”up to here
It does, and that is not negotiable. I build the technical half: the untouched original, a log per step, an export in one piece. The other half your accountant writes.
How far it holds: 2 × entirely
This is the objection where I most often advise against it, and it comes from firms that mainly buy services rather than goods: consulting, rent, electricity, insurance. For those there is no delivery note and often no order, so one column is left of three. What still carries is the comparison with the past: the same supplier, the same amount, the same rhythm, and a deviation from that is worth a question. That is a different, weaker check, and it rarely justifies the full build. Where the weight is on goods, it looks the other way round.
Text recognition has been standard technology for years, and a clean PDF hands over its contents without trouble. The work starts afterwards. On an ordinary document the subtotal, the net after discount and the net before early payment sit underneath one another; which of them belongs in the ledger depends on the supplier. Add collective invoices covering several deliveries, credit notes with reversed signs, and amounts embedded as images. That is why an arithmetic check sits behind the extraction and a comparison in front of it: not because recognition is bad, but because recognising and assigning are two different things.
The division of labour stays exactly as it is, and that is deliberate: booking is a task with liability attached, and it belongs to whoever carries it today. What changes is the state the documents are in when they arrive. An accountant cannot see that an invoice is missing, because a missing invoice looks like nothing at all. They can also hardly see that one arrived twice if it came in over two routes. And they do not know your purchase orders. Those three questions get answered beforehand, and afterwards they receive a complete, sorted stack with the originals attached.
The document as it arrived is filed unchanged, with its received date; what the system reads out of it sits beside it, not on top of it. Every step gets an entry: when something came in, who approved when, what was exported when. The whole holding is exportable in one piece, including if you leave. What I expressly do not supply is an assurance that this satisfies everything: whether the filing meets your retention periods and what the procedural documentation has to look like is decided by your accountant, not by a marketing promise. I supply them with the details for it.
08 — Appointment
Pick a time that suits you straight from the calendar. I go through with you where your company stands and what is worth doing. No obligation and no sales pressure.
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