From Approved PO to Paid Supplier: the Construction Purchase Ledger

A construction business lives or dies on what it owes its suppliers and subcontractors. The purchase ledger is where that gets pinned down — but it only earns trust when every invoice ties back to something that was actually approved, posts a double entry that balances, and pays out without anyone re-keying bank details.

That's the job of the Purchase Ledger & BACS module in The ERP Experiment. It sits on top of the approvals and purchase orders you already raise and the documents you capture, and turns them into posted, payable transactions.

Match the invoice to the order

When an invoice comes in against an approved purchase order, the order has an outstanding balance: the approved value less anything already invoiced. Construct365 will only post the invoice when its net value brings that balance to exactly £0.00. Invoice short and it tells you how much is missing; invoice over and it tells you by how much. No silent overspend, no commitments left hanging on a job.

One invoice, many codes and rates

Real invoices aren't tidy. A single invoice line carries its own cost code, nominal account and VAT code, so one document can spread across materials, plant and prelims at different VAT rates. At posting the engine builds a balanced double entry:

• each expense line debits its nominal account,
• VAT is grouped by code and debits the VAT control account,
• the gross credits the creditors (purchase) control account.

Every posting validates against an open purchase period before it's written — closed months stay closed.

Pay through BACS, on the record

When it's time to pay, you build a payment batch: pick the posted invoices, freeze it for review, and download a BACS file to upload to your bank. Marking the batch paid posts the cash payment — debit creditors, credit bank — and settles the invoices. The freeze-then-pay step is your approval gate before any money leaves the account.

Always-accurate aged creditors

Aged creditors reads straight off posted, unpaid invoices, bucketed by how overdue each is against its due date. The instant a pay run completes, those invoices drop out of the outstanding position — so the report always shows what you really still owe.

One subscription

Purchase Ledger & BACS is part of the single ERP Experiment subscription, alongside every other module. Subscribe once and it's unlocked.

👉 Explore the ERP hub, or see where the data starts in approvals & purchase orders and document capture.