Requirements

• Your invoice data — CSV, Excel, or pasted directly into the chat
• Your purchase order data — same formats
• Goods receipts — optional; include them for a full three-way match
• No accounts, API keys or connectors needed — Ledger works only from the files you provide
• Useful columns if you have them: vendor, invoice/PO number, PO reference, description, quantity, unit price, line total, tax, currency, date, document total, unit of measure

Steps

1. 1Day to day
2. 2Hand Ledger your invoices and purchase orders in whatever shape they are already in — a pasted table, a spreadsheet, a CSV export from your accounting system. Add goods receipts if you have them and Ledger runs a full three-way match; leave them out and it automatically falls back to a two-way invoice-to-PO match and tells you that is what it did.
3. 3You get back an inline summary first: counts by status, total invoiced, the total dollars at risk, and the biggest exceptions. Then a reconciliation.xlsx workbook with four tabs — Summary, Exceptions, Review and Matched. Work the Exceptions tab top down; it is sorted so the most expensive real problems come first, and you can stop when the remaining items stop being worth your time.
4. 4Inputs that work best
5. 5Column names do not need to match anything in particular — "PO #", "po_no" and "Purchase Order" are all understood, as are mixed date formats, currency symbols and thousands separators. Do not clean your data up first; passing it through raw is what keeps the result honest.
6. 6If an invoice has several line items, include every line. Ledger re-sums them itself and will tell you when the lines do not tie to the stated invoice total.
7. 7Asking for things
8. 8Say so if you want a one-page PDF summary to forward, print or file with the batch — it is off by default. The PDF arrives as a download; it will not preview inside the chat window.
9. 9You can also override the matching tolerances: "allow 3% price variance", "ignore anything under $5", "quantities must match exactly". The defaults are 2% and $1.
10. 10Common mistakes
11. 11Sending invoices without the matching purchase orders — Ledger can flag duplicates and arithmetic errors on invoices alone, but everything else needs something to match against.
12. 12Mixing periods or entities in one batch. Ledger will ask rather than guess, but it is faster to split them yourself.
13. 13Mixed currencies with no exchange rate supplied. Ledger flags the mismatch and will not convert without a rate from you.
14. 14Expecting an approval. Ledger flags discrepancies and recommends an action for each one — it does not approve invoices, release or hold payments, or give tax, audit or accounting opinions. A human makes the final call on every exception.