Trade finance teams have been running three-way match on letters of credit for decades. We borrowed the pattern.
Why AP three-way match breaks
Tolerance ambiguity. Without a defined tolerance matrix, every discrepancy goes to a human — even the ones that are obviously fine.
What trade finance does differently
Tolerance is explicit, documented, and signed off upfront. Discrepancies are categorized, not just flagged. Escalation depends on category, not queue position.
The result
Exception queue dropped 60% in the first month. Vendors started pre-formatting invoices to fit the tolerance windows. The exception rate dropped further without us touching code.
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