Your purchasing colleague met a supplier at Canton Fair and saved its business card. A few days later, an invoice arrives with a bank account in a different company name. The salesperson says it is the group's collection account. Before finance pays, someone needs to connect the contracting business, invoice issuer and recipient with records, not assumptions.
This situation is fictional and does not describe a customer. This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. These checks do not certify a supplier or guarantee that a payment provider will accept the arrangement.
Keep the original instruction beside your working copy
Save the supplier-issued invoice and payment instruction with the message that delivered them. Copy the details into your internal payment request if needed, but give the approver the source as well. Comparing two copies of your own transcription can miss the same error twice.
Identify which version is current. If the supplier sends a correction, preserve the earlier instruction, mark it superseded and explain what changed. Ask the supplier to issue a revised document where the invoice itself is wrong. Editing their PDF leaves your colleague unable to tell what the supplier actually authorised.
The document checklist covers the purchase file. Include the buyer's legal name and order reference so the beneficiary check belongs to a specific obligation rather than an isolated account number.
Compare the companies before comparing the numbers
Request the supplier's registered company name, including the Chinese name where available, and relevant registration records. Compare those with the contract and invoice issuer. An English trading name, a factory name and a registered company name may differ; ask for the records that explain the relationship.
Do not decide that similar names prove common ownership. Establish whether the business is manufacturing the goods, reselling them or collecting payment for someone else. Your buyer needs to understand which company owes delivery under the purchase agreement.
Keep any explanation in its original form with a note of who provided it. An internal label such as "same supplier" should point to evidence. If the relationship cannot be established, finance has an unresolved question, not an approved exception.
Match the beneficiary to the purchase
Ask for the full bank account name, account number, bank and branch, receipt currency and required payment reference. Compare the account holder with the invoice issuer. Have a colleague compare every copied field with the source instruction before approving funding.
For a third-party beneficiary, obtain the supplier's written reason and supporting authority to receive payment. Let the person responsible for purchase approval and the payment provider assess that material. The provider may require other evidence or decline the arrangement; a supplier letter is not automatic approval.
For a wallet receipt, confirm the token, network and destination through the agreed channel and ask how the supplier will credit the transfer to the invoice. Ownership and authority still need review. A wallet that has received a transfer before is not proof that it belongs to the contracting company.
Establish a contact channel independent of the instruction
With an existing supplier, use a previously verified contact to confirm a change. With a new supplier, build that verified contact record first. Check company and contact details against reliable records your team obtains independently, rather than relying only on links or phone numbers supplied with the new account.
Record who confirmed the instruction, through which channel and when. A reply in the same compromised email thread would not be independent confirmation. Nor does a familiar display name prove that the person writing controls the supplier's account.
If the salesperson insists on immediate payment while refusing a check, pause. Ask purchasing to resolve the question and record the result. The production deadline does not make an unverified destination safer.
Recheck what changed after the quote
Give the payment provider the beneficiary instruction your team approved. If the supplier changes the account, name, amount or invoice after that review, tell the provider before funding and obtain an updated approval or quote as required. Do not assume approval follows the invoice number regardless of other changes.
Use pay an invoice to ask A2vanta about documents for the proposed recipient. The new-supplier deposit guide connects this check to the first production payment. No transfer should leave solely because the buyer recognises the product from the booth.
Preserve the decision for the next payment
Save the accepted instruction, supporting company records, verification note and payment approval together. Keep the supplier's receipt acknowledgement after payment. Those records let a colleague understand the first transfer without treating it as permanent approval of every later account.
Before the balance, compare the current instruction again. If a new beneficiary appears, reopen the review. The deposit and inspection guide separates the goods-release decision from the beneficiary check: passing inspection does not authenticate a changed account.
When the recipient is an individual
If the invoice names a company but the instruction names a person, use the personal-account guide before approving funds.