From Digital Cards to Digital Buying: Why 3-Way Match Is Holding Indirect Procurement Back
The way companies pay is changing. And it’s changing fast.
According to recent data from the Institute of Commercial Payments (IOCP), 53% of organizations now allow mobile wallets and payment apps, a 30-point increase in just four years. This is not a marginal evolution. It’s a structural shift in how employees interact with money at work.
And it already tells us something important: when payment experiences become simpler, faster, and more intuitive, adoption follows.
We’ve seen this movie before.
Expense Management Is Already Making the Leap
In expense management, the transition from physical cards to digital cards wasn’t driven by technology alone. It happened because digital cards removed friction:
Card issuance became instant
Controls moved upstream
Receipts and data were captured automatically
Employees paid the same way they did at home
Once employees could tap to pay, the entire downstream process — reconciliation, compliance, reporting — became simpler by design.
The outcome was clear: better control and better experience.
So why hasn’t the same logic been applied to online purchasing in indirect procurement?
The Real Legacy Problem: 3-Way Match
When we talk about invoices, we’re often only naming the symptom.
The real legacy construct in indirect procurement is 3-way match.
Purchase Order. Invoice. Receipt.
This process made sense in a paper-based world, where payment happened after delivery and verification was the only way to establish trust. But in a digital commerce environment, it has quietly become a cost engine.
To sustain 3-way match for indirect spend, organizations accept:
Manual approval chains and management time spent validating low-value purchases
Heavy procurement and AP software to reconcile transactions that were digital from the start
Delays that frustrate users and push spend outside the system
And all of it is cost. Not value.
Questioning 3-Way Match Is Not Reckless. It’s Strategic.
The uncomfortable question is not whether 3-way match works.
It’s whether it is still necessary for online buying in indirect procurement.
Today, online purchases are already digital by default. Payments can be instant. Supplier data is structured. Controls can be enforced before money is spent — not after.
With Compliant Open Buying powered by virtual cards, a different model becomes possible:
Spend is authorized upfront, at checkout
Policies, limits, and supplier rules are enforced in real time
Transaction data is captured automatically without the need for invoice
And while payment is not withheld before reception (for goods and services), most suppliers already operate with a simple return policy similar to what we are used to. So unless trust of an approved supplier is the issue, there is very little argument left to eliminate 3-way match.
This isn’t a future vision. It already exists.
From Process Guardians to Business Partners
Clinging to 3-way match for indirect online spend doesn’t make procurement safer. It makes it slower, more expensive, and less relevant.
The next evolution of procurement leadership won’t come from optimizing legacy processes. It will come from letting go of them when they no longer add value.
Just as finance leaders accepted that physical cards had no place in a digital expense world, procurement leaders now face a similar moment of truth.
Leaving the old kit behind requires foresight. But it also unlocks something far more important: the ability for procurement to move from process enablement and enforcement to re-engineering and transformation.
The shift already happened in expense management. Indirect procurement is next.
