Lost in Transit: Why Your P2P Investment Never Reaches Its Destination
There’s something that’s been bugging me for years: everyone talks about the three-way match like it’s procurement gospel—and it absolutely is. Purchase orders, receiving records, invoices. Simple concept that prevents fraud and keeps your books clean.
But here’s the part I don’t get. Companies are throwing serious money at procurement automation and AP systems that treat receiving like an afterthought. And honestly? That’s exactly why so many P2P implementations fall flat on their faces.
I’ve watched this play out at dozens of organizations, and the pattern is always the same. It’s like watching someone spend $50K on a sports car just to put bicycle tires on it.
The Problem: We’re Doing This All Wrong
Most companies handle receiving in one of two equally problematic ways. They either go completely overboard or they punt entirely.
The “ERP Everything” Disaster
Stop me if this sounds familiar. Some well-meaning IT director decides that if the ERP system is good enough for complex inventory tracking, it’s good enough for everything else too. So now your marketing manager—who just needs to confirm that the consultant actually delivered those brand guidelines—has to navigate the same system designed for warehouse professionals managing serial numbers and lot tracking.
I worked with a mid-size manufacturer last month where they were requiring department heads to get ERP training just to receive office supplies. The training took longer than actually receiving the supplies would have taken. It’s insane when you think about it.
The marketing director there told me, “I have an MBA and fifteen years of experience, but I need help desk support to confirm someone delivered printer paper.” That’s when you know something’s broken.
Complex workflows don’t just discourage participation—they kill it. People start creating workarounds, which defeats the entire purpose of having controls in the first place. I’ve seen departments go back to paper requisitions because the digital process was such a nightmare.
The “We’ll Figure It Out Later” Mess
Then there’s the other extreme. Finance teams look at the ERP complexity, throw up their hands, and decide they’ll just handle receiving when invoices show up. This might sound pragmatic to some, but it’s a nightmare in practice.
Picture this: An invoice hits AP three weeks after delivery. Now some poor AP clerk is forced to play detective, trying to figure out who supposedly received those consulting services. They finally identify the right person, only to find out they barely remember the transaction.
I had one client where their AP manager spent an entire afternoon trying to track down who signed for a $12,000 software training session that happened two months earlier. The original requester had left the company, the department head was traveling, and nobody else could remember if the training actually happened. Meanwhile, the vendor was threatening to put them on a credit hold.
The fallout is predictable: vendor relationships get strained because payments are constantly delayed, and cash flow forecasting becomes more like educated guessing than data-driven planning.
What Actually Works: Match the Tool to the Job
Look, this isn’t rocket science. You wouldn’t use a sledgehammer to hang a picture frame, and you shouldn’t force a marketing manager through warehouse receiving workflows just to confirm a delivery.
The companies that get this right use their ERP systems for what they’re built for—complex inventory operations—while giving everyone else something that actually makes sense for their needs.
When ERP Receiving Makes Perfect Sense
Your warehouse team? They need the full ERP treatment. They’re tracking lot numbers, managing quality inspections, updating inventory levels in real-time. That complexity serves a purpose, and they’re trained for it.
But here’s what I’ve learned from working with successful operations: even with ERP systems, you need dedicated receiving staff who know the workflows cold, clear SOPs that don’t require a manual to understand, and quality checkpoints that catch problems before they become expensive mistakes.
For Everything Else, Keep It Simple
Professional services, office supplies, equipment repairs, software licenses—this stuff represents huge chunks of most organizations’ spending these days. And none of it needs ERP-level complexity.
What it does need is an interface that makes sense to normal humans. I’m talking about the ability to confirm receipt with a couple of clicks, attach a photo of what arrived, and handle the inevitable exceptions like partial deliveries or damaged goods without requiring a help desk ticket.
A system that automatically routes receiving tasks to whoever requested the purchase, sends smart reminders based on expected delivery dates—simple enough that anyone can use it, but sophisticated enough to maintain proper controls.
Why This Matters More Than You Think
When you get receiving right across all purchase types, something amazing happens. Your entire P2P process starts working the way it was supposed to work in the first place.
- AP becomes unblocked
- Three-way matches become virtually automatic
- Cash flow becomes predictable
I’ve seen this transformation enough times now that I can predict the benefits. Your vendors start to love you because payments become consistent and timely. Your procurement team gets real visibility into supplier performance. And here’s the kicker—you can handle volume growth without adding proportional headcount to your AP team.
But probably the biggest win? Your audit trail becomes bulletproof. No more scrambling to reconstruct what happened six months ago based on email threads and faded memories. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen companies sweat through audits because their data was scattered across spreadsheets, emails, and people’s recollections.
Why We Built Comprehensive Receiving Into Stampli
This receiving gap is exactly why we made it a core part of Stampli rather than an afterthought. Too many companies are stuck with solutions that were clearly designed by people who never actually had to use them.
I mean, how many times have you looked at a software interface and thought, “The person who designed this has never actually done this job”? That’s what drove us to build something different. Something that works the way you do.
Real ERP Integration That Actually Works
Our integrations with SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Sage, Dynamics, and the rest aren’t bolt-on connections that sort of work most of the time. They’re built to sync receiving data in real-time, providing our AI matching engine with the complete, current data needed to do its job properly.
When your warehouse team receives something in the ERP, that data flows immediately into Stampli. No delays, no data gaps, no manual intervention required. It just works.
Interfaces Designed for Actual Humans
Our philosophy on software design is simple: if someone needs training to use it for basic tasks, you’ve already failed. Stampli’s receiving interface is built so that selecting items and tapping “Receive” feels obvious, not like solving a puzzle.
We show users exactly what they need to confirm and give them clear options for the common scenarios they’ll actually encounter. Partial delivery? Damaged goods? Services that aren’t complete yet? All handled with straightforward choices that don’t require a user manual.
AI That Learns Your Business Patterns
Our AI matching technology doesn’t just compare numbers—it learns patterns in your business. It can tell the difference between a genuine discrepancy that needs human attention and routine variations that happen in every business.
More importantly, when exceptions do need human review, Stampli makes it easy to route them to the right people with all the context they need to resolve issues quickly. No more “can you look at this?” emails with zero context.
Communication That Stays Connected
Something else I’ve learned over the years: the moment communication about a transaction moves outside your system, you’ve lost control of your process. That’s why we built messaging directly into Stampli.
Users can ask questions, share updates, or escalate problems without the conversation getting scattered across email threads that nobody can find six months later. Everything stays connected to the relevant data, creating audit trails that actually make sense.
The Bottom Line
The most efficient operations I’ve seen don’t treat receiving as a necessary evil—they make it a competitive advantage. They understand that the right receiving process, matched to the right purchase type, can transform their entire P2P workflow from a cost center into a strategic asset.
If your receiving process feels like forcing square pegs into round holes, or worse, you’re leaving serious money and efficiency on the table.
Ready to fix your P2P process once and for all? Let’s talk about how Stampli connects every dot, receiving included.
