What do I do when an invoice total does not match the line items?

1. Hold it

A total that doesn't reconcile is a stop sign. Pay the printed figure and you may overpay, or book a number your own line items don't support.

2. Re-add it yourself

Add the lines and compare with the subtotal. Then check that subtotal plus tax equals the total. Look at quantity times unit price on each line too, since a line amount can be wrong on its own.

3. Read the size of the gap

Three lines of 420.00, 380.00 and 300.00 give a subtotal of 1,100.00, which matches. Tax is 88.00. The printed total is 1,988.00, but 1,100.00 plus 88.00 is 1,188.00. A gap of exactly 800.00 is too clean to be rounding. It points to a typo in the total, not a line error.

A gap of a cent or two is the opposite case: rounding on the tax, not worth a phone call. A gap equal to one line's amount usually means a line was doubled or dropped. A gap equal to the tax means tax was added twice.

4. Get it corrected

Email the vendor with the figures and ask for a corrected invoice or a credit memo. Record the corrected amount once it arrives. InvoiceJet runs this check on every invoice and holds any that don't reconcile, showing both numbers, so the gap gets caught before payment.