Documents to Check Before a Wire Transfer
Build a five-tab supplier payment packet that assigns owners, freshness rules, and exception approval to identity, contract, invoice, and bank evidence.
Accounts payable should not have to reconstruct a supplier relationship from an email thread while a wire transfer is waiting. It should receive one release packet that shows who is being paid, why the amount is due, which documents support it, who checked each fact, and which exception is still open.
Put the decision on one cover sheet
The packet cover is not a sixth supporting document. It is the reconciliation page that prevents reviewers from comparing one attachment at a time and forgetting the relationship between them.
Payment reference and vendor ID
Legal Chinese name and USCC
Contract party / invoice issuer / bank beneficiary
PO or contract / invoice / milestone references
Amount, currency, due date, bank country, and payment purpose
Existing or changed bank details
Preparer, commercial approver, finance approver, and exception owner
Do not force three different entities into one “supplier name” field. If the contract seller, invoice issuer, or beneficiary differs, show each on its own line and point to the document that explains the relationship. A blank field is visible; a hidden assumption is not.
Tab 1: identity evidence
Include a dated company-record result with the exact Chinese legal name, USCC, status, and source. A current business license can support the file, but it should not be the only current check. The 2025 company-registration measures, available through the Chongqing market-regulation authority, list the name and USCC among the fields carried on a company license. They do not make the license evidence of a bank account or of this invoice.
The SAMR registration service page describes the national company information available through the public registration system. Procurement or vendor onboarding owns this tab; AP checks that its legal name and USCC are the same values used on the cover. Use the ChinaValidate Company Search guide when a fresh lookup is required.
Tab 2: the commercial obligation
Include the executed contract or accepted purchase order, the relevant amendment, and the clause or schedule that makes this amount due. The reviewer should be able to locate the goods or service, quantity, price, currency, payment stage, and contracting entity without searching an inbox.
If payment depends on a milestone, add the evidence owned by the person who observed it: sample approval, production sign-off, inspection result, shipping document, or service acceptance. Finance confirms that evidence is present and approved; it does not certify product quality from a PDF. Procurement owns the contract facts, while operations, engineering, or quality owns the milestone.
Tab 3: the transaction request
Include the supplier's pro forma or commercial invoice, or the agreed payment request for the transaction. It should identify the issuer, buyer, goods or service, PO or contract reference, amount, currency, payment term, and document date. A Mainland Chinese VAT invoice is a different tax document; do not mark an overseas payment packet incomplete merely because a pre-shipment request is not a fapiao.
AP owns the arithmetic and document match. It compares the request with the contract and milestone, checks for duplicate invoice numbers, and records any credit, discount, prior deposit, or partial payment. If the issuer is not the contract seller, move the difference to Tab 5 rather than writing “same group” in a comment. The invoice-issuer glossary keeps this role separate from the beneficiary.
Tab 4: bank instruction and independent confirmation
Keep the beneficiary name, account number, bank name and country, SWIFT or routing data, payment reference, and the source of the instruction together. Compare those details with the approved vendor master and the prior successful payment, if one exists. The invoice is a payment claim; it should not be the only source used to authenticate a changed account.
For a new account or any change, add the callback record: date and time, person reached, number or channel used, how that contact was already known, old details confirmed, new details confirmed, and the employee who performed the check. UK government payment-diversion guidance recommends a trusted contact and sign-off procedures, while its invoice-fraud guidance says not to use contact details contained in the bank-change message.
Treasury owns the final payment fields and execution. The buyer may also need its normal sanctions, export-control, or bank-compliance review; this packet does not replace those controls. For the entity-to-account reasoning, use the beneficiary-check workflow.
Tab 5: one explicit exception, owner, and expiry
An exception page is required when the verified supplier, contract party, invoice issuer, or beneficiary does not align; when a required document is unavailable; or when policy freshness has expired. It should state the exact difference, commercial explanation, independent evidence, remaining exposure, compensating control, authorized approver, and expiry.
“Approved supplier” is not an exception reason. Neither is a relationship letter sent in the same email as new bank details. Examples of stronger evidence include an executed tri-party payment clause, a current intercompany relationship record, a contract amendment naming the collection party, and independent confirmation through a controlled contact. Legal, compliance, tax, or treasury may need to own the decision depending on the difference.
Use event-driven freshness, not one arbitrary age
- Company evidence: set a risk-based policy window, then refresh sooner after a legal-name, status, address, ownership, contact, or dispute change. “Checked last year” is not a current rule.
- Contract and milestone: use the version and event for this payment. An earlier PO cannot support a new amount without an amendment.
- Invoice or request: tie it to this amount and check that it has not already been paid or superseded.
- Bank instruction: treat any change as a new authentication event, even when the old account was used successfully for years.
- Exception: expire it by transaction, amount, date, or stated condition. Do not let a one-time approval become a permanent vendor-master rule.
A policy may choose 30, 90, or 180 days for different company checks, but those numbers are internal risk settings, not Chinese legal validity periods. Record the policy version used so a later audit can reproduce the decision.
Build the packet across two days
- T-2 business days: procurement opens the payment reference, locks the vendor ID, and attaches identity and contract evidence.
- T-1: the milestone owner signs the event; AP matches the request, amount, currency, and issuer; any difference receives an owner.
- T-0: treasury checks bank details against controlled records, completes any independent callback, and verifies two-person authorization.
- After release: save the bank confirmation, value date, final approvers, and any rejection or return message in the same packet.
This order keeps the person entering the payment from becoming the only person who assembled, changed, approved, and executed it. The operational last-minute checks remain in Wire Transfer Checks for a China Supplier; this article defines the evidence handed into that process.
Release, hold, or reject the packet
Release when the obligation is due, the amount and currency reconcile, the entity chain is understood, bank instructions are authenticated, and required approvals are present. Hold when evidence is missing but a named owner can close it before the deadline. Reject or escalate when an account change cannot be authenticated, a document appears altered, the payment has no contractual basis, or nobody with authority accepts the exception.
Suppose a fictional supplier sends invoice HX-2048 from a familiar email thread at 16:40, asks for same-day payment, and introduces a new Hong Kong beneficiary. Tabs 1 to 3 may still be complete. Tab 4 fails because the new account has no independently sourced confirmation, and Tab 5 has no approved collection relationship. The correct result is hold, not “95% complete.” The packet shows exactly what procurement and treasury must obtain.
Preserve the file another reviewer would need
Store the original message, native attachments, relevant headers when available, prior and new bank instructions, callback note, approval events, exception evidence, and final transfer confirmation. Restrict sensitive banking data to staff who need it. UK government international-trade fraud guidance also treats partner vetting and original incorporation evidence as part of trade-fraud prevention.
The packet should answer four questions without oral history: what was owed, to which legal relationship, to which authenticated account, and who accepted any remaining difference. Keep the longer supplier history in the supplier-approval file; keep this release packet compact, transaction-specific, and impossible to approve while a required tab is silently empty.