A document's journey
2 min readUpdated 8 Sep 2026
In this article
Eight stops, in order. Steps 1 to 6 usually need nobody; step 7 is the job.
- Why the order helps more than the screen names
- The eight stops, from arriving to your accounts
- Where to look when something stopped
- Why plenty of customers stop at step 4
01 · Why
Why learn the order?
Knowing the order helps more than knowing the screens, because when something is wrong the useful question is "how far did it get?"
02 · What it means for you
The eight stops
- It arrives. Someone uploads it, forwards it to a Merchaint email address, or imports a spreadsheet. It appears in the Inbox.
- Merchaint works out what it is. An invoice, a purchase order, a statement — and picks the schema that says which fields to look for.
- Merchaint reads it. Fields at the top, line items in the middle. If it cannot, the document goes to Exceptions.
- It becomes a record. The data lands as a row in a module, where you can see and edit it.
- Merchaint cleans it up. Supplier names on the document become your own supplier records; codes become your codes.
- Merchaint compares it. The invoice is matched against the purchase order or goods receipt, line by line, and the differences are marked.
- A person looks, if needed. Only when something disagrees, or a workflow asks for an approval.
- It goes to your accounting system, if you have connected one and asked for that.
Steps 1 to 6 usually need nobody. Step 7 is the job.
03 · FAQ
Common questions
Where do I see how far a document got?
Open it from the Inbox. It shows what was read and what records came out of it — see Check what was extracted.
Something stopped at step 3.
Something stopped at step 7 and nobody noticed.
Do I have to use all eight steps?
No. Plenty of customers stop at step 4 and use Merchaint to turn documents into clean data.