Sending goods with the right piece of paper in the box
A delivery note is the sheet that rides along with the goods. It says what was sent, where it is going and what is still to come. This piece walks through every part of the form, why the price column is missing on purpose, how back orders work themselves out, and how the box labels are built from the same few details.
The sheet that goes in the box
Somebody packs an order. Somebody else opens the box at the other end. Between those two moments the goods are out of everyone's hands, and the only thing travelling with them is a piece of paper. That paper is the delivery note.
Its job is plain. It tells the person opening the box what ought to be inside. They check the contents against the list, sign for the boxes, and file the sheet. When something is missing, the note is the first thing anyone reaches for.
Some trades call it a packing slip. Others say despatch note, advice note, or goods received note. The words drift from one industry to the next, but the document is the same one. So the heading at the top can be changed to whatever word your customer expects to read.
Why the prices are missing
There is no price column here, and no way to add one. That is a decision rather than a gap.
Three sets of eyes tend to see this sheet. The driver who carries it. The clerk in goods-in who signs it. And often the person the parcel is meant for. None of the three need the figures.
Put prices on the paper in the box and you have told a warehouse team what their employer pays you. On a gift order you have also put the receipt in with the present. Both happen more often than anyone admits.
The bill goes by another route, to another person, usually at another time. Keeping the two apart is the whole reason this document exists on its own.
Two addresses that are allowed to differ
The form asks for an address twice, and the two are not the same thing.
Sold to is the customer as the order was placed. That is often a head office or an accounts department. Deliver to is the door the boxes actually arrive at.
A chain of shops orders through head office and takes delivery at a branch. A builder orders from an office and wants the goods on site. In both cases a single address would be wrong for one half of the job.
When the two really are the same, tick the box at the top of the delivery panel. The delivery fields fill in and lock, so a later change to the customer address carries across by itself.
Two more fields sit under the delivery address: a name to ask for, and a phone number. Both print on the box label. A driver at a locked gate with a phone number gets in. One without it goes back to the depot with your goods.
Ordered against despatched
Each goods line has four boxes: a code, a description, a quantity ordered and a quantity despatched.
Those two number columns are the point of the whole sheet. A list of what is in the box tells the receiver half of what they need. The comparison tells them the rest.
Put 24 in the ordered box and 18 in the despatched box. Both print. Six are missing, and the line says so without anyone doing sums.
Codes are worth filling in even when the description is clear. A code is what a stock system searches for. A description is what a person reads. The note carries both, because the two ends of a delivery work from different ones.
If the order went out complete, press Despatch everything. It copies the ordered column across every line at once. That is quicker than typing the same number twice on ten lines, and it cannot slip a digit.
Back orders that work themselves out
You never type a back order figure. The tool takes one column away from the other.
There is a reason for that. A hand-typed shortfall can disagree with the two numbers printed right beside it. On a sheet whose only job is to be checked, a document that argues with itself is worse than one with a blank space in it.
Short lines are marked in the status column and counted in a line under the table. Twelve items missing across three lines then reads as one sentence, not three separate sums.
The other case is handled too. Send more than was ordered and the line is marked as extra, in a different colour. Over-despatch is often perfectly proper: a free replacement, or rounding a part case up to a full one. It should still show on the day rather than turn up at a stock count in March.
Boxes, and the weight nobody writes down
Under Packages you say how many pieces the consignment is, and what to call them. Cartons, pallets, sacks, rolls, crates. The word prints on the note and on every label, and it drops to the singular when there is only one.
Gross weight is optional, and worth typing anyway. If a carrier weighs your consignment and reaches a different figure, the number on your paperwork is what you argue from. Leave it blank and the argument is one-sided.
The package count is the number that matters most at the door. A receiver counts boxes. They do not open them and count screws. So the count prints large, in the strip across the note and again on each label.
Signing for it, and saying what the signature means
The signature block asks for three things: a signature, a name in capitals, and the date and time.
Above them sits a line saying what that signature covers. It confirms how many packages arrived. It does not confirm what is inside them.
That one sentence saves arguments. A driver hands over three cartons. Somebody signs. Two days later a shortage turns up inside one of them. Without the line, the signature can be read as agreement that everything was correct.
Under the signature is a ruled box for damage and shortages. Write in it before signing, not after. Across the trade, a signature with nothing beside it is taken as clean receipt.
Both blocks can be switched off. A note going into a parcel for a shopper at home does not need a goods-in panel, and turning them off buys room on the page.
Labels for the boxes
Switch the output from the note to box labels and the same details lay themselves out at 100 by 150 millimetres. That is the usual thermal label size, and the same shape as four by six inch stock.
One label is built for each package. Set three and three appear, numbered box 1 of 3, box 2 of 3 and box 3 of 3. Those numbers do real work. A driver holding two boxes can say which one is adrift without opening a thing.
The label leads with the delivery address in large type, then the order number, the note number and the consignment number. Your own address sits small at the foot under Return to, because that side only matters when the parcel fails.
There is a switch for listing the goods on the label as well. It saves opening boxes in a small store room. Leave it off if you would rather the outside of the box said nothing about the contents.
The paper size asked for in the print box changes with the choice, so labels come out at label size instead of stranded in the corner of an A4 sheet.
A worked example: a stationery order
A packaging supplier is sending an order to a shop, and the page opens with this example already filled in.
Sold to is the customer's head office, with the accounts address under it. Deliver to is the branch: a rear yard entrance, the goods-in manager's name, and a phone number for the driver.
Four lines go in the goods panel. Two hundred kraft mailing boxes, twelve rolls of paper void fill, twenty-four rolls of gummed tape, and four rolls of fragile labels.
Everything ships except the tape. Only eighteen rolls were on the shelf, so 18 goes against the 24 ordered. The status column marks that line, the footer adds six to follow, and a sentence under the table says the rest will come on a separate note.
Three cartons, 18.4 kilograms, next working day with a tail lift, and the consignment number typed in as plain text. The whole thing prints on one sheet.
Then the output is switched to labels, and three come out, one for each carton. Nothing was typed twice.
Getting it off the screen
Print opens your browser's own print box. The form, the site header and everything else on screen are left out. Only the sheet is sent.
To keep a copy as a file instead, change the destination inside that box to save rather than print.
Download PNG writes an image straight out with no dialogue at all. In label mode it writes one image per label and puts them in a zip, named in order.
Picking list (CSV) saves the goods lines as a spreadsheet: code, description, ordered, despatched, to follow, over-despatched and a status word, with totals at the foot and the consignment details below. That is the file you paste into a sheet to chase the outstanding items.
Save as text gives you the same content as plain words, which is handy for pasting into an email to the customer.
Things that go wrong
A handful of slips cause real trouble rather than mild embarrassment.
The note number repeats. Move it on by one every despatch. A run with gaps or twins in it is hard to check a year later.
The customer's own order number is left out. That is the reference their goods-in office will search for. Yours means nothing at their end.
The paperwork is written before the boxes are packed. Then one item will not fit, the order goes out short, and the note already says otherwise.
The despatched column is copied across out of habit on an order that was not complete. That is the one error nobody catches, because the sheet looks tidy.
The note runs past a single A4 page. The panel warns you when it does. Shorten the descriptions, turn off the shortage box, or split the despatch across two notes.
Where it stops, and where your details live
This builds one consignment at a time. There is no customer list, no stock control and no record of past despatches. If you send forty orders a day, a proper warehouse system will earn its keep quickly.
It knows nothing about special paperwork either. Dangerous goods declarations, waste transfer notes and customs documents each have their own rules and their own forms, and none of them are covered here.
Your entries are kept by the browser you typed them into. That is deliberate. Your address, your carrier and your wording rarely change, so tomorrow's note opens mostly finished. Clear your browsing data and it goes, and it never turns up on another machine.
None of it is sent anywhere. Customer names, site addresses, stock codes and order numbers are commercial details, and this page draws all of them without asking any server for help. Start again wipes the lot and puts the worked example back.