What to Do When a Vendor Says a Payment Was Not Received

1. Verify status: check your records and the bank for the payment's actual state. 2. Confirm method and reference: identify the rail, date, and trace or check number. 3. Check details used: confirm the banking or remit-to details were correct. 4. Confirm remittance: verify the advice reached the right vendor contact. 5. Decide the response: wait, resend remittance, or void and reissue based on status. 6. Protect against duplicates: never reissue a payment that may still settle. 7. Record everything: capture the investigation and any reissue in the audit trail.

The first step is always verification. Check your payment records and the bank to learn whether the payment cleared, is still in transit, was returned, or failed. A cleared payment means the funds reached the vendor, which moves the question to the vendor's side, while an in-transit payment may simply need time to settle.

This step protects against duplicate payment. Reissuing a payment that is still in transit or has already cleared creates a second payment that is then hard to recover. Knowing the status before acting is the single most important control here.

Once status is known, confirm the details. Check that the banking or remit-to information used on the payment matched the trusted vendor record, since a payment sent on wrong or changed details may have misdirected.

Then confirm the remittance advice. Sometimes the payment moved correctly but the vendor never received the remittance that tells them what was paid, which makes a successful payment look missing. Resending clear remittance with the payment reference often resolves the inquiry without any reissue.

When a payment was returned or failed, investigate why before resending. A returned ACH may reflect a closed or wrong account, and the fix is to correct the banking details, verify them, and reissue with a record of the change.

If wrong details were used and funds may have misdirected, recovery should be attempted through the bank, and any reissue should follow corrected, verified details. Voiding the original and reissuing should always preserve the link between the void and the new payment so the audit trail stays intact.

Stampli reconciles payments so that one payment creates one bank transaction and one ERP record, which makes a payment's status traceable rather than buried in a lump-sum batch. That one-to-one tie helps confirm quickly whether a payment cleared, is outstanding, or was returned.

Stampli supports ACH, check, virtual card, and international payments, and pre-payment ERP validation and safety checks run before funds move, which reduces the misdirected and failed payments that prompt these inquiries. Vendor management keeps verified banking and remit-to details on file for comparison.

Every action is captured in an immutable audit trail with full context. When a payment is investigated, voided, or reissued, the record shows what happened and when, which supports both recovery and audit.