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Feature Request: PO Discrepancy Tracking and Four-Way Matching in Xero

Xero currently lacks a mechanism to track discrepancies between purchase orders, goods received, and bills. This creates a significant gap in inventory and financial accuracy, especially when POs are used across both sales and purchasing workflows.

Use Case / Scenario:

A Purchase Order (PO) is created and sent to a vendor for 10 units.

That same PO is copied to a sales invoice and sent to a customer, assuming full fulfillment (10 units).

However, the vendor only delivers 7 units and issues a bill for those 7.

In Xero, when the bill is entered for 7 units, the system does not flag the discrepancy or track the 3 unfulfilled units from the original PO.

As a result, inventory and accounts payable only reflect 7 units, while the customer invoice still reflects 10 units — leading to an inventory shortfall and potential overcommitment to the customer.

The Problem:

Xero does not currently support:

Discrepancy tracking between what was ordered (PO), what was received (goods), and what was billed.

A formal Goods Receipt step in the workflow.

Any alert or flag when there is a mismatch in quantities between PO, Bill, and Invoice.

This creates risk in several areas:

Inventory Management: The system overstates stock available for sale or delivery.

Customer Commitments: You may invoice customers for goods that haven't been received or cannot be fulfilled.

Accounts Payable Oversight: There's no easy way to verify if you're being billed accurately against what was actually delivered.

Audit Trail: There is no proper trace of unfulfilled orders or delivery discrepancies.

Request:
Introduce a proper four-way matching capability in Xero that covers:

Purchase Order (PO)

Goods Receipt

Supplier Bill

Customer Invoice or Payment

Additionally:

Allow Xero to track unfulfilled units on partially billed or partially received POs.

Provide alerts or flags for mismatches between what was ordered, received, and billed.

Maintain open PO balances that clearly show what quantities are outstanding.

Why It Matters:
This functionality is essential for businesses managing physical inventory, especially those who:

Pre-sell inventory based on POs

Rely on partial deliveries

Need accurate stock-on-hand for order fulfillment

Require a clear audit trail between procurement and invoicing