Vendor Matching
When an invoice arrives in VaultAP, the system automatically attempts to match it to an existing vendor record. This matching process is a key part of fraud detection — invoices that cannot be confidently matched to a known vendor are flagged for review.
How Matching Works
VaultAP uses a two-pass matching approach:
1. Exact Match
The system first checks for an exact match on the vendor name. This comparison is case-insensitive and ignores leading or trailing whitespace, but otherwise requires the name on the invoice to match a vendor record precisely.
2. Fuzzy Match
If no exact match is found, VaultAP applies fuzzy matching to account for common variations in vendor names. The fuzzy matching engine handles:
- Case differences — "acme corp" matches "ACME Corp"
- Abbreviations — "Corp" matches "Corporation", "Inc" matches "Incorporated"
- Punctuation and spacing — "Acme, Corp." matches "Acme Corp"
- Common prefixes and suffixes — "The Acme Company" matches "Acme Company"
- Minor typos — small edit-distance variations are tolerated
Fuzzy matching is intentionally conservative. VaultAP would rather flag a potential mismatch for human review than silently match an invoice to the wrong vendor.
Confidence Scoring
Every match attempt produces a confidence score between 0 and 100:
| Score Range | Classification | Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| 95 -- 100 | Exact match | Invoice is matched automatically. |
| 75 -- 94 | High confidence | Invoice is matched but a FUZZY_MATCH informational flag is added. |
| 50 -- 74 | Low confidence | Invoice is flagged for manual review. A suggested vendor match is shown. |
| Below 50 | No match | Invoice receives a NEW_VENDOR flag. No automatic match is made. |
When No Match Is Found
If VaultAP cannot match an invoice to any existing vendor with a confidence score of 50 or above, the following happens:
- The invoice is assigned a NEW_VENDOR risk flag.
- A new vendor record is automatically created from the invoice details.
- The invoice appears in the review queue for a team member to verify.
During review, the reviewer can:
- Confirm the new vendor record if it is legitimate.
- Link the invoice to an existing vendor if the match was missed (see Manual Linking below).
- Block the vendor if the invoice appears fraudulent.
Manual Linking
When automatic matching fails or produces an incorrect result, reviewers can manually link an invoice to the correct vendor record.
Open the invoice
Navigate to the flagged invoice in the review queue.
Select Change Vendor
Click Change Vendor in the vendor section of the invoice detail page.
Search for the correct vendor
Use the search field to find the correct vendor by name, tax ID, or bank details.
Confirm the link
Select the vendor and click Confirm. The invoice is re-associated and the NEW_VENDOR flag is resolved.
Manual linking also improves future matching. VaultAP learns from manual links and adds the invoice's vendor name as an alias on the vendor record, so subsequent invoices with the same name variation are matched automatically.