Every year end brings the same request: “we are still short of X in cost invoices.” At that point the options are limited — invoices are not found, they are managed one transaction at a time throughout the year.

First: screen your suppliers up front

Whether a supplier can reliably issue compliant invoices is a criterion for choosing them, not a surprise discovered after payment. For your main long-term suppliers, you need a list: who can issue invoices, of what type, and on what cycle.

Second: move the timing earlier

• Negotiate invoicing together with price, and write the terms into the contract or order;
• Align payment and invoicing schedules so money does not go out before the invoice arrives;
• Reconcile input and costs monthly rather than taking stock of the gap once a year.

Third: keep the evidence trail complete

Contract, order, acceptance or delivery note, payment record, invoice — when these five line up, the reality of the transaction holds. Conversely, an invoice with no business trace behind it, or a transaction with no invoice, both become difficult to explain later.

What if the invoice genuinely cannot be obtained

Classify it first: is the supplier unwilling to issue, is the transaction not eligible for that document type, or did a process step get missed? Each cause has its own route. What you should never do is patch the gap by collecting unrelated invoices — that turns one finance problem into a much bigger one.