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Where to find it: Dashboard → Finance → Invoices Review what carriers bill against what you agreed to pay, then approve, dispute, or pay.
The Invoices page in the Owlery dashboard

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The Review Workflow

Tabs follow the payment stages. The number badge on each tab shows how many invoices are in that state.
To work oldest-due first, sort Needs Review by the Payment due date column. The default sort is newest invoice date first.
The cards above the table summarize open invoices by how soon they’re due, plus recent and upcoming payments. Here’s how an invoice moves between tabs. Archiving isn’t shown, because it hides an invoice without changing its status.

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Find Invoices

  • Search: matches invoice, load, and reference numbers, carrier names, and who acted on an invoice, across every tab.
  • Filters: narrow by invoice number, reference numbers, invoice date, payment due date, pickup date, carrier, approved by, tags, and GL codes. Tabs add their own filters, such as Disputed at on Disputing or Payment statement # on Paid.
  • Download data: exports the current tab, with your filters and sort, as a CSV.
  • Columns: show, hide, or resize columns.

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Reading the Table

Awarded and Difference compare each invoice against the load’s full awarded rate. If a carrier bills one load on several invoices, for example line haul on one and detention on another, each invoice is compared to the full rate on its own. Use the related-invoices totals in the invoice drawer to see what you’ve been billed for the load overall. See Multiple Invoices on One Load.

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Review an Invoice

Click a row to open the invoice drawer. The header shows the status, invoice number, and carrier, plus the actions available for that status. Use the tag icon to add tags, and the ⋮ menu to archive.

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What Owlery Audits

Owlery audits, approves, and sends to your accounting system the line items the carrier entered: in the portal, by CSV, through the API, or by EDI. Not every invoice has a PDF. When the carrier attaches one, it’s a reference copy, and Owlery doesn’t read amounts from it. If the PDF and the entered line items disagree, the entered line items are what you’ll pay.

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What to Check Before You Approve

  1. Related invoices: if a yellow banner says there are other invoices for this load, review them first. See Multiple Invoices on One Load.
  2. Total vs. awarded: in Details, compare the invoice total to Awarded.
  3. Line items: in the Line Items table, the Quoted column shows the matching quote charge next to each invoiced charge. Arrows flag charges above or below the quote. Quote charges the carrier didn’t bill appear with a total of -.
  4. Invoice PDF: not every invoice has one, but if the carrier attached an invoice in Documents, confirm its total matches the entered line items.
  5. Freight details: Freight Review compares class, weight, NMFC, and quantity across the quote, the load, and the invoice.
  6. Proof of delivery: in Documents, confirm the POD is on the load.
  7. Order match: if the invoice isn’t matched to an order, see When an Invoice Isn’t Matched to a Load.

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Drawer Tabs

You can’t edit invoice line items or amounts. If the charges are wrong, dispute the invoice so the carrier can resubmit it.
If the payment due date in Owlery differs from the carrier’s due date on the invoice, Details says “Vendor due date differs from Owlery payment due date.” Owlery uses its own date for sorting, filtering, and auto-batching.

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Invoices on Archived Loads

If the drawer notes that an invoice’s load is archived, your team archived that load, but the carrier can still bill for it, for example a TONU. Owlery never approves these invoices automatically, even if your Freight Audit and Pay rules would otherwise approve them. Someone on your team has to decide. Review it with your team before you approve. If the charge isn’t owed, dispute or archive the invoice. See Cancel or Archive a Load. To see who approved an invoice on an archived load and when, open the invoice’s History tab.

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Multiple Invoices on One Load

One load can appear on several invoices, and one invoice can cover several loads. When an invoice shares a load with other invoices, a yellow banner at the top of the drawer reads “There are N invoices totaling $X for load …”. The same banner appears on the load’s Financials tab. The banner totals what you’ve been billed, approved, and disputed for the load, and what you’ll owe if you approve this invoice. Below the totals is a list of the other invoices with their status and amount. Click the open icon to view one in a new tab. Click Compare invoices to see this invoice and another side by side. Switch between Details (line items vs. quote) and Documents. If there are more than two invoices, use Compare with to choose which one.
A shared load doesn’t always mean a duplicate charge. Common reasons are a separate accessorial invoice (detention, lumper, layover), a TONU, or a corrected invoice sent under a new invoice number. Compare the line items and documents before you approve.
These totals only include invoices in Owlery. If you paid part of a load outside Owlery, for example before you turned on Freight Audit and Pay, Owlery doesn’t know about that payment. A later invoice for the same load, such as a lumper fee, can include the line haul again and still look like it matches the awarded rate. Check the line items before you approve.

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When an Invoice Isn’t Matched to a Load

If Owlery can’t tell which load an invoice is for, the Loads column shows the load number from the invoice with a Not found warning. The Orders column shows Find Order, and Awarded and Difference show N/A. When you open the invoice, a banner says it hasn’t been matched to an order yet. This usually means the carrier put the wrong load number on the invoice. You have four options:
  • Match it yourself: click Find Order in the row, or Click to Match Order in the invoice banner. Owlery has already searched the invoice’s reference numbers; dimmed ones had no matching order. Pick from Possible Matching Orders and click Match Order to Invoice, or search by another reference number. Owlery links the invoice to that order’s load too, then compares the invoice to what you agreed to pay.
  • Dispute it: dispute the invoice with a reason such as “Wrong load number.” The carrier is notified and can resubmit with the correct load number. See What Carriers See When You Dispute.
  • Ask the carrier to resubmit: contact the carrier and have them resend the invoice with the right load number. The corrected invoice replaces the old one. See When a Carrier Resubmits an Invoice.
  • Approve it anyway: approve without matching. The cost won’t be tied to an order, and Owlery can’t compare it to what you agreed to pay.
If the carrier’s quote was never accepted, Owlery asks you to confirm with Match invoice anyway? Matching also marks the quote as Accepted.
If a carrier keeps sending invoices with the wrong load number, send them Submit an Invoice. It explains how to submit invoices in Owlery, and how to correct one by reusing the same invoice number.

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Approve or Dispute

Click Approve or Dispute in the invoice drawer, or select rows in the table and use the buttons above it to act on many invoices at once. The dialog has two optional fields:
  • Approval label / Dispute label: short tags such as “Rate confirmed” or “Wrong load number.” Pick a label your team has used before, or type a new one. Labels are also added to the invoice’s tags.
  • Approval reason / Dispute reason: free-text detail.
When you select several invoices, the dialog lets you enter a label and reason for each one.
Always add a dispute label and reason. They’re the only explanation the carrier gets for why the invoice was sent back.
After you approve, the dialog closes right away and Owlery finishes in the background: “Approving N invoice(s). You can keep working.” If you’ve connected an accounting system, approved invoices are sent to it automatically. If sending fails, the Sent to Accounting column shows a red icon with the error. Fix the issue, then select the invoices on Approved and click Send to accounting to retry. To select every invoice that matches your filters, not just the current page, select the page and click Select all N matching invoices. Test invoices can’t be approved or paid.

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What Carriers See When You Dispute

When you dispute an invoice, the label and reason you enter are shared directly with the carrier in three places:
  • The Dispute Label and Dispute Reason columns in their invoice table.
  • A red “Why this invoice is disputed” alert at the top of the invoice detail drawer.
  • The History tab of the invoice drawer, which shows the full status-change timeline.
If Disputed Invoice Digest is on, the carrier also gets a daily email listing disputed invoices. See Invoice Emails and Payment Statements. Carriers can’t see internal fields like tags, GL codes, internal notes, auto-batch status, accounting sync records, or who on your team took each action.

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Change a Decision

  • Back to Review: returns an Approved, Disputing, or Archived invoice to Needs Review and clears the earlier decision. If the invoice was archived, this also unarchives it.
  • Archive: hides an invoice from the active tabs without changing its status. Use it for duplicates or invoices you’ll never pay. Archive from the drawer’s ⋮ menu, the row’s ⋮ menu, or select rows and click Archive above the table. Archived invoices still count in related-invoices totals.
  • Unarchive: restores an archived invoice to its original tab, with its status unchanged.
Archiving from a row’s ⋮ menu happens immediately, with no confirmation.
Invoices in Payment Created or Paid are final: they can’t be approved, disputed, or returned to review. You can still archive and unarchive them. If an approved invoice was already sent to your accounting system, see Troubleshoot Unexpected Bills.

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Pay Approved Invoices

On Approved, select invoices and click Pay, or click Pay in an invoice drawer. The invoices move to Payment Created. Pay requires Automated Bill Pay. See Invoice Emails and Payment Statements for the Pay dialog, GL-code splitting, and statement emails. To create statements on a schedule instead, set up Approved Invoice Auto-Batching.

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Automating Decisions

Invoice Auto Decision Rules can automatically approve or dispute invoices based on the awarded rate, POD, ERP rates, and order matching. Invoices that don’t meet either rule stay in Needs Review for you. When rules are on, you’ll see their results in the review workflow:
  • Reasons for No Auto Approval on Needs Review explains which checks didn’t pass, for example “Invoice INV-123 has load(s) without a POD attached: L-456.” Only your team sees this.
  • Reasons for Approval on Approved shows “All configured checks passed.”
  • Auto-disputed invoices show Auto Disputed in Disputed by, and labels such as Awarded Rate Check, Missing POD, ERP mismatch, Invoice ERP mismatch, or Order Traceability.
See Invoice Auto Decision Rules to configure thresholds, checks, and carrier overrides.

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When a Carrier Resubmits an Invoice

Carriers can correct and resubmit an invoice as long as it’s still in Needs Review or Disputing. Once an invoice moves to Approved, Payment Created, or Paid, it’s locked, and the carrier can’t overwrite it. To accept a correction to an approved invoice, use Back to Review first. Resubmissions arrive through the same channel the carrier used originally (EDI 210, the external API, CSV upload, or an edit to a manually created invoice in Owlery) and are matched to the existing invoice by invoice number. When a resubmission comes in on an unlocked invoice:
  1. The existing invoice is replaced in place. Line items, totals, load numbers, invoice date, party info, and reference numbers are all updated. The invoice number and status stay the same, so a disputed invoice remains on the Disputing tab.
  2. Auto decision rules re-run if you use them. If the correction fixes the issue, for example the total is now within your threshold or a missing POD is now on file, the invoice can be approved automatically.
If someone on your team disputed the invoice, a resubmission updates its data but leaves it in Disputing for you to review. Owlery never overrides a decision your team made.