Supplier payments: the Friday review
On Friday the director always does the same math: what we owe, to whom, and what gets paid today. Almost always it happens in a spreadsheet someone feeds by hand — and the spreadsheet doesn't know which purchase orders are still unpaid or when each supplier's credit runs out. In Matterial that screen is Payments: unpaid purchase orders show up on their own with their due date (the supplier's credit days counted from delivery), and whatever doesn't come from an order — a piecework payroll, the rent, an insurance premium — is recorded in seconds. Everything, from every project, sorted by urgency: overdue, this week, later.
- Unpaid purchase orders appear on their own: no need to enter them twice.
- An order's due date is proposed from the supplier's credit days, counted from DELIVERY.
- A payment doesn't have to come from an order: payroll, rent or insurance are recorded as one-off payments.
- A one-off payment linked to an order counts as a partial payment and lowers that order's balance.
- Receiving material is not paying for it: receiving lives in Purchasing; the money lives in Payments.
- Overdue in red on top, then this week, then the rest — the Friday list is already done.
- Export to CSV when the bank or the accountant asks for the list.
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Open Payments on a Friday
In the menu, Finance section → Payments. At the top you see the size of the problem: total payable, how much is already overdue, how much is due this week and how much you paid in the last 30 days. Below, the accounts grouped by urgency.
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Review the overdue ones first
The red band holds what is already overdue, with how many days each one is past due. Each row shows supplier, project, concept and invoice. If you already paid it, "Mark paid" and it disappears.
- 3
Record a payment without a purchase order
The "Record payment" button: supplier (autocompleted from your catalog), project if it applies, concept, category (materials, labor, overhead…), method and amount. If you pick a supplier with credit days, the due date is proposed for you.
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Pay a large order in installments
In the same form, choose the purchase order: supplier, project and the remaining BALANCE are prefilled (not the total — if there were earlier payments, less is owed). Save the installment as paid and the order's balance goes down; when the balance reaches zero, the order leaves the list.
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Reconcile with Purchasing, not against it
Receiving the material lives on the purchase order (Purchasing); the payment lives here. The site engineer may have received everything without anything being paid — and this screen is the one that tells you.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a purchase order show up here if nobody recorded it in Payments?
Because an unpaid order IS an account payable. Payments reads the orders from all your projects and shows the ones still unsettled, with the due date calculated from the supplier's credit days since delivery.
Can I record a payment that doesn't belong to any project?
Yes. Leave the Project field as "No project": the office rent or a company insurance policy are recorded the same way and count in the Friday review.
What if I pay an order in parts?
Record each part as a payment linked to the order. Each paid installment lowers the balance; the order disappears from "To pay" when the balance reaches zero, or when you mark it paid in one go.
What does the "PO canceled" tag in Paid mean?
That the payment was made to a purchase order that was later canceled. The money is already gone, so it stays in Paid, in the CSV (with the status "Paid (PO canceled)") and in the project’s Spent amount until the supplier returns it. Whatever that order still had promised and unpaid was voided when it was canceled: a canceled order no longer gets paid.
Does marking paid here affect Purchasing?
Yes: marking an order paid from Payments stamps its payment date on the purchase order — it is the same data, not a copy.