Wave Point

The invoice that didn’t match the delivery

A delivery comes in the back door at 7:40 am, the invoice goes in the folder, and the gap between what was ordered, what arrived and what was billed gets paid a week later, unread. This is one invoice moving through a restaurant with the assistant watching.

Wave Point invoice assistant watching Day 2, 10:15 am
INV-7731Harbor Produce
Order
PO-2210
Delivered
7:40 am
Lines
14
Invoiced
$1,486.20
Terms
Net 7
Paid $1,392.70
  • ✓ Delivery signed for at 7:40 am against PO-2210, 14 lines
  • ✓ 12 lines match the order and the agreed price list
  • ! Romaine, 24 ct: 4 cases ordered, 3 delivered, 4 invoiced — $58.00 billed for a case that never arrived
  • ! Chicken thighs invoiced at $3.42/lb against the agreed $3.10/lb — $35.50 over, third week running
Over the agreed order, after credit $0.00
  • ✓ Credit request for $93.50 drafted to Harbor Produce, delivery sheet and price list attached
  • ✓ Inventory corrected to 3 cases, Friday’s order raised by one, and the chicken price queued for your next call with the rep
With Wave Point paid the right amount Day 2 Without paid in full Day 7 never recovered
With Wave Point
paid the right amount Day 2
Without
paid in full Day 7, the $93.50 never recovered

One of 26 invoices this week. Nobody on your team opened it.

An illustration, not a client result. The supplier, the order and the figures are representative of a single independent restaurant, and no client data is involved.

The same four minutes, written out

Nothing here needs the chef to stop plating, the manager to remember the price list, or anyone to count cases twice. It runs on every invoice, including the ones that look fine.

Your ordering, your supplier portals and your accounting stay exactly as they are. The first time anyone hears about this invoice is when the credit lands.

Day 0, 7:40 am

The delivery is signed for

Fourteen lines from Harbor Produce come in the back door against order PO-2210. In most kitchens the invoice goes in a folder and is paid on Friday.

Day 0, 7:41 am

The invoice is checked against the order, not against memory

Twelve lines match what was ordered and the price list you agreed with the rep. That much a careful manager does too — on a quiet morning, with the list to hand.

Day 0, 7:43 am

Two problems surface that nobody would have caught before Friday

A case of romaine was invoiced but never arrived: $58.00. Chicken thighs were billed at $3.42 a pound against the agreed $3.10, for the third week running: $35.50. Together, $93.50 over.

Day 0, 7:44 am

The credit is requested before the invoice is paid

A credit request goes to the supplier with the delivery sheet and the price list attached. Inventory is corrected to three cases and Friday’s order raised by one. The price drift is queued for your next call with the rep.

Day 2

Paid the right amount

$1,392.70 goes out, not $1,486.20. No dispute, no phone call, no month-end surprise.

Day 7

What would have happened instead

Paid in full. Nobody compares fourteen lines to a price list on a Friday afternoon, so the $93.50 is never noticed — and the price drift carries into next week’s invoice too.

Why one invoice is worth this much attention

Because it is not one invoice. A restaurant takes twenty or thirty deliveries a week, and the errors on them are small, quiet and cumulative: a price that drifted, a case that never arrived, a credit nobody asked for.

None of them is worth a manager’s afternoon on its own. All of them together are a line in your food cost that you cannot see, because nobody has the time to look.

The drift

The price that moved

Suppliers update price lists; invoices follow; nobody re-reads the agreement. The difference is small per line and permanent per week.

The short case

The line that never arrived

Invoiced in full, delivered short. It is checked in at the busiest hour of the morning by whoever is nearest the door.

The credit

The money nobody asked for

Even when a discrepancy is spotted, the request for credit needs the delivery sheet, the price list and ten minutes. It rarely gets all three.

What we plug into

Your point of sale and inventory stay exactly where they are — Toast, Square, MarketMan, or whatever you run. We read from them and write back the way your staff already do.

Same for supplier portals, the invoices that arrive as emailed PDFs or paper at the door, the price list in a spreadsheet, and your accounting. If an invoice currently passes through it, we work with it.

What we would look at first

Invoice against order and price list, before payment. Short deliveries and credits. Ordering against tonight’s bookings and last week’s sales. Which one we start with depends on what your invoices say in the discovery call — not on what we happen to have built already.

Bring us a week of invoices

Thirty minutes, and we will tell you which lines did not match what you agreed. If the answer is “none of them”, that is a useful thing to know and it costs you nothing.

Book a discovery call