Before You Pay Checklist
Buyers, finance teams, and anyone releasing trade payments · Before wire, deposit, or balance-payment release
Risk warnings
- Do not release trade payments until beneficiary details, payment milestone, screening, and approval evidence are verified outside the invoice email thread.
Counterparty and beneficiary match
- Match the supplier legal entity on the proforma, PO, contract, and company registry or onboarding record.
- Confirm the beneficiary name belongs to the approved supplier or an approved finance/intermediary party documented in writing.
- Check bank country, branch location, and account currency against the supplier location, contract, and expected payment route.
- Record IBAN or account number, SWIFT/BIC, bank name, bank address, and beneficiary address exactly as verified.
Payment basis and approvals
- Confirm invoice or proforma totals, SKU lines, currency, Incoterm, deposit percentage, and balance trigger match the approved PO.
- Verify the payment milestone has been earned, such as signed proforma, sample approval, inspection pass, shipment release, or document presentation.
- Run sanctions and restricted-party screening on the supplier, beneficiary, bank, owners if known, and destination country before release.
- Save internal approval evidence showing amount, currency, beneficiary, payment method, approver, and accepted downside risk.
Fraud and escalation controls
- Complete out-of-band callback verification using a trusted phone number or contact source, not details from the latest invoice email.
- Escalate any account change, new beneficiary, third-country bank, urgent reroute, or email-only bank update before payment.
- Pause payment if there is unusual pressure, secrecy, changed contact behavior, mismatched domain names, or resistance to verification.