Eliminate Those Errors

Eliminate those errors

Karen Groves asks: is the supplier’s statement of account received correct, or does it contain errors?

During your studies for AAT Level 2, you might be asked to check a supplier statement of account received to their payable’s ledger account for accuracy. This can sometimes cause confusion as students do not know how to approach this task.

Why do we need to do this?

It is important to ensure there are no errors, and that we are only paying the correct amounts to suppliers. For example, if the supplier has duplicated an invoice in their system we will end up overpaying, unless we check the statement of account received by the supplier. We will now look at an example:

Example

We have received the following statement from Lucky’s Pet Food Supplies, which now needs to be checked to the payable’s ledger account for accuracy, prior to making payment:

Payables Ledger Account

We will now work through step by step matching the items to check for accuracy:

1. Invoice 2546 for £384.60 matches in both

2. Invoice number 2551 is showing on the statement of account as £384.52, whereas in the payables ledger the amount is £344.52

3. Invoice 2562 for £260.00 matches in both

4. Credit Note CN 121 matches in both

5. Payment for £314.87 matches in both

6. Discount for £19.23 matches in both

7. Invoice number 2605 is showing on the statement of account as £320.00, whereas in the payables ledger the amount is £230.00

What to do next?

The purchase invoice 2551 should be located to check if the amount should be £384.52 or £344.52.

The purchase invoice 2605 should also be located to check if the amount should be £320.00 or £230.00.

If the supplier’s statement of account is incorrect, then you will need to call them to politely explain the discrepancy and request they update their records.

If the error is in our payable’s ledger, then we need to update our records to ensure they are correct.

• Karen Groves is an AAT tutor and AAT Faculty Director at e-Careers