Set Up Accounts Payable. During the course of this transaction, the set up AP function has received and temporarily filed copies of the PO and receiving report. The organization has received inventories from the vendor and has incurred (realized) an obligation
to pay for the goods.
At this point in the process, however, the firm has not received the supplier’s invoice containing the financial information needed to record the transaction. The firm will thus
defer recording (recognizing) the liability until the invoice arrives. This common situation
creates a slight lag (a few days) in the recording process, during which time the firm’s liabilities
are technically understated. As a practical matter, this misstatement is a problem
only at period-end when the firm prepares financial statements. To close the books, the
accountant will need to estimate the value of the obligation until the invoice arrives. If
the estimate is materially incorrect, an adjusting entry must be made to correct the error.
Because the receipt of the invoice typically triggers AP procedures, accountants need to be
aware that unrecorded liabilities may exist at period-end closing.
When the invoice arrives, the AP clerk reconciles the financial information with the receiving report and PO in the pending file. This is called a three-way match, which verifies that what was ordered was received and is fairly priced. Once the reconciliation is complete, the transaction is recorded in the purchases journal and posted to the supplier’s account in the AP subsidiary ledger. Figure 10.20 shows the relationship between these accounting records.