Matching process

When Zuora imports a payment, Smart Match AI processes it in two stages:

1. Customer prediction: Identifies the customer that made the payment using invoice numbers, aliases, payer names, or previous matching data. For example, the payer name WMS INC can map to World Machinery Services Inc.

2. Invoice prediction: Identifies the invoices that belong to the customer and match the payment amount or reference. For example, the total of INV-12345 and INV-12346 equals the payment amount.

Zuora classifies the result into one of the following statuses:

1. Match: Strong confidence from a direct reference or previous confirmation.

2. Partial match: Partial overlap between invoice amounts or an ambiguous reference.

3. No match: No reliable match is found. Zuora lists the payment under Exceptions.

Customer prediction

The customer is identified based on the following

1. Invoice information found on the Payment

2. Customer Name found on the Payment

Based on the user's posting Patterns, the the banking name for a customer is learnt by our system thus leading to smarted matches based on the psoting pattern.

For example, if Zuora does not identify a customer for a payment with the bank name WMS INC and you post the payment to World Machinery Services, Zuora records the association. The next payment with the bank name WMS INC can match World Machinery Services.

Parent-child matching

Zuora's Smart Match AI also supports Parent–Child relationships to ensure accurate payment-to-customer mapping when multiple related entities exist under a single group.

When a hierarchy includes a parent, child, and grandchild, Zuora associates the payment with the parent, also called the group head. This association applies even when the payment or remittance mentions a child.

With this structure:

• You can use payments in the group to close invoices for any entity in the family.
• Accounting records the payment against the parent for consolidated reporting.

For example, if Zuora identifies a payment for Bob Inc. California, a child of Bob Inc. Group, and the parent is Bob Inc. USA, Zuora links the payment to Bob Inc. USA.

The payment can then clear invoices for Bob Inc. USA, Bob Inc. California, Bob Inc. New York, or any other subsidiary in the group.

Key rules

1. Payments made by any child or grandchild are attributed to the parent.

2. The feature only works when a valid Parent-Child structure exists in the customer master.

3. If no group exists, activating the feature has no effect. Zuora processes payments as usual.

4. When a payment's customer assignment changes, remittance attached to it moves automatically.

5. If the Split within the same customer family setting is active, Zuora assigns the payment alias and self-learning data to the parent.

Activate parent-child matching

To activate parent-child matching, navigate to Settings > Cash Application > Parent & Child.