Proof of delivery: the document that decides who pays for the missing pallet

A proof of delivery — POD — is the record that goods reached the consignee, who received them, when, and in what condition. It closes the transport leg and, in most trading relationships, it is the document that entitles the carrier to be paid and the seller to enforce the invoice. Its value shows up only when something is contested, which is why it is designed badly so often: the version that works well on a good day is useless on a bad one.

The bad day looks like this. Three weeks after delivery a customer says one of four pallets never arrived. Your POD has an illegible signature, no printed name, no piece count and no time. The carrier has a different copy with the same defects. Nobody can prove anything, and the loss lands on whoever gives in first.

What a proof of delivery has to record

• Consignment reference tying it to the order, the delivery note and the invoice — one number that connects all four documents.
• Delivery address as actually delivered to, not as printed on the order.
• Date and time. Time matters for perishables, for service level claims and for arguing about what happened afterwards.
• Piece count received, checked against the count dispatched. A count is worth more than a signature.
• Name of the person receiving, printed as well as signed, plus their role — a security guard signing for a site is not the customer accepting the goods.
• Condition on arrival, and any damage noted specifically. "Received unexamined" is a real and useful notation where the consignee cannot check on the spot.
• Short delivery or refusal, recorded at the point of delivery rather than reported afterwards.
• Photographs where the delivery is unattended or the condition is disputable.
• Driver and vehicle identification.

A clean signature is not the same as clean goods

Signing for a consignment usually acknowledges receipt of the number of packages, not confirmation that their contents are correct and undamaged. That distinction is the basis of most deduction disputes: the consignee signs, discovers a problem when the pallet is unwrapped, and the seller points at the signature. Which of you is right depends on your terms and the carrier’s, and both usually impose a short window for notifying damage that is not apparent on delivery. Know that window; it is measured in days, and missing it forfeits the claim regardless of the merits.

Unattended deliveries need a different standard of evidence. Where nobody signs, the record has to carry the geolocation, the time and a photograph of the goods where they were left — and the terms of sale need to say that this constitutes delivery, or the photograph proves the wrong thing.

The POD is invoice evidence

In practice the proof of delivery does most of its work in the accounts department rather than in the warehouse. Customers deduct for shortages, dispute prices against what arrived, or simply hold an invoice pending evidence, and every day the POD takes to surface is a day the invoice is not being paid. Filing it against the invoice at the moment it comes back — rather than in a monthly batch — is the single cheapest improvement available: Ettex Invoices holds the invoice with the POD attached so a query is answered in the reply rather than after a search, Ettex Records keeps the consignment file including the delivery note and any damage report, and Ettex Sheets tracks the deliveries still missing a returned POD, which is the list that actually predicts next month’s disputes.

Being direct: this is documents and records, not a transport management system. There is no driver app, no route plan, no scanning and no carrier integration. Where that is what you need, the electronic proof of delivery route is the one to look at, and this post is about the document underneath it.