From notice to stock: an inbound, end to end

Summary

An inbound touches almost every module in the system: it starts as an advance ship notice (ASN), the driver signs in at the kiosk, the supervisor assigns a dock, the operator unloads and captures the receipt, a supervisor confirms it, and at that moment the goods enter stock, the charges are created, the email goes out to the customer and everything shows up in their client portal.

Each module has its own detailed article. This one follows a single truck from start to finish and stops at every hand-off: the point where one module passes the work to the next, which is where most things get lost.

Tip: the idea that ties it all together: the notice and the receipt are paperwork; the goods only exist in the system once the receipt is confirmed. Before that they cannot be allocated, they do not accrue storage and the customer does not see them in their inventory.

Before you start

What must exist	What for	Where
The receiving module (and the inventory module) enabled for the warehouse	Without receiving there are no notices or receipts; without inventory the receipt is confirmed but creates no stock.	Cargoflow enables it. See How the system is put together.
The visits module (for the kiosk) and the docks module	The driver kiosk depends on visits; the board, on docks.	See Driver registration.
The customer, linked to the warehouse	The whole path is per customer.	Set up a customer
Their products, with the same SKU the customer uses	A notice from the portal, the API or EDI rejects an SKU that does not exist.	Products and units
Active locations	Every line with a quantity needs one to be confirmed.	Locations and zones
Inbound handling in the customer's rate card	Without that row the receipt is confirmed but not billed.	Customer rates
Customer contacts with email, and the Notifications tab	Who gets the receipt-confirmed email.	Customer emails and reports

The path in one table

Step	Screen	Who (permission · default roles)	What changes
1. Notice	Inventory › Inbound (ASN), the portal, the API or EDI	Create Arrival Notices (ASN) · admin; or the customer	Notice Sent, and a Pending receipt created automatically
2. The driver arrives	Kiosk or QR	The driver, no account needed	Driver record; alert in the dock board bell
3. Dock and link	Operations › Docks	Write Docks · supervisor, admin	Dock job Assigned, linked to the receipt
4. Unloading and capture	My Work (operator) and the receipt capture	Capture Receipts · worker, supervisor, admin	Receipt In progress, then Captured
5. Review and confirmation	Review & confirm	Confirm Receipts · supervisor, admin	Receipt Confirmed; notice Received
6. Stock	Stock screen	Automatic	The goods are added at the captured location
7. Charges	Commercial › Billing, unbilled services	Automatic	Inbound handling and services charged on receipt
8. Alerts	Bell, email, callback to their system	Automatic	Receipt-confirmed email to the customer
9. The customer sees it	Portal: Receipts and Inventory	Portal users	Receipt Confirmed and the stock in their inventory

1. The advance ship notice

The notice says "this is coming". It can come in four ways, and all four end the same: a notice in Sent status and, at the same time, a Pending receipt with the expected lines, ready in Inventory › Receipts.

Path	How	What it captures
In the system	Inventory › Inbound (ASN) › create. Save as draft leaves it in Draft (no receipt yet); Save and send sends it. A draft is sent later with Send to warehouse, as long as it has at least one line.	Customer, expected arrival, carrier, trailer, notes and lines (product, expected quantity, unit).
Client portal	The customer clicks Notify inbound and then Send notice. See Notify an arrival from the portal.	Also: their reference, driver, seal, PRO number, tracking number, final destination and attached documents.
API	The customer's system sends the notice; it comes in directly as Sent. See Connecting a system through the API.	Carrier, trailer, expected date, their reference, notes and lines by SKU.
EDI	A 943 or 856 document from the trading partner. See EDI: what works today and what does not.	Whatever the file carries.

The notice captured in the system: Save and send is what creates the pending receipt.

Hand-off: when the notice is sent, the receipt copies the customer, carrier, trailer, driver, seal, PRO number, tracking number, final destination and every line with its expected quantity. It does not copy the notice's notes or its expected date: if the notice carries an important instruction in its notes, the operator will not see it on the receipt.

Important: the form in the system asks for less than the portal (it has no driver, seal or customer reference). If you capture the notice on the customer's behalf, those details are filled in later, during the receipt capture or when linking it to the dock job.

While the receipt is still Pending with no dock job, the customer can edit or cancel from the portal a notice they sent themselves. Once the warehouse links it to a dock or starts capturing, they can no longer do so.

2. The driver arrives

The driver signs in at the warehouse kiosk (tablet, or QR code on their phone): language, Delivery type, subtype, name, company, phone number with country code, the truck details the warehouse asks for (by default: truck number, trailer number and license) and a photo. See The driver, from arrival to departure.

The driver chooses	Where the record goes
Warehouse Delivery (unloads at a dock)	To the dock board bell: the supervisor sees "New Driver Arrival".
Yard Drop Off (leaves the trailer in the yard)	To the Jobs to Assign panel of the yard. The receipt is worked when the trailer moves to a dock. See Dock, yard and cross-dock.

Hand-off: the driver record is not linked automatically to its notice. The kiosk does not ask for the notice number. The supervisor ties the truck to the receipt in the next step.

3. Dock and link to the receipt

In Operations › Docks, the supervisor opens the arrival from the bell and uses the assignment window: picks a dock, a worker and a customer and clicks Assign Dock. If they answer yes to Do you want to notify the driver?, the driver gets an SMS or WhatsApp message with the dock number.

The same window has the Link to WMS section, with three options:

An existing receipt — the system suggests the warehouse's Pending or In progress receipts, ranked by how closely they match the truck: reference, trailer number (the strongest signal), expected date and company. With no customer chosen, it only suggests receipts that match on reference or trailer. This is the right option when there was a notice.
Create a new receipt — creates a Pending receipt with no lines, linked to the job. It is for a truck that arrived without a notice. It requires a customer to be chosen and the Capture Receipts permission.
No link — assigns the dock and leaves the receipt for later.

Creating a job by hand, without the kiosk: the job is tied to the driver and the customer, and the receipt is linked from its details.

If it was not linked when assigning, it can be linked later: in the Job Details, with Create receipt & link (only while the job is Assigned or In Progress), or from the receipt screen, in its dock job card, with Link. Details in How to create a dock job.

Hand-off: a receipt can only be linked if it is Pending or In progress, belongs to the same warehouse and the same customer as the job, and is not linked to another job. When it is linked, the receipt header takes from the driver the carrier, name, trailer, seal and pickup number it is missing.

Important: the link is best-effort: if it fails (for example, because the receipt was already linked to another job), the dock is assigned anyway and no error is shown. After assigning, open the Job Details and check that the receipt shows as linked.

4. Unloading and capture

The operator sees the job in My Work and taps START JOB. At that moment the linked receipt moves by itself from Pending to In progress (assigning alone does not change it). See The operator app.

What is unloaded is captured in one of these places:

The receiving panel of the operator app — received quantity and location per line, with Save receiving. It records, but never finishes the receipt.
The receipt capture (Inventory › Receipts › the receipt › Capture receipt) — the full capture: per line, received quantity, damaged quantity, location, discrepancy type (Over-received, Short, Damaged, Wrong SKU), lot, notes, photos (images up to 5 MB), package type, pieces, dimensions and weight. At the top, the Actual arrival date and the truck details.
The tablet scanner — scanning adds or increases lines; an SKU that is not on the receipt is rejected.

Capturing a receipt born at the dock: the "From appointment" badge and the driver details already filled in are the hand-off from step 3.

There are two buttons at the bottom: Save & continue (leaves the receipt In progress) and Save & send to review (moves it to Captured and alerts the supervisors). Someone who can also confirm lands straight on the review. Details in Capturing the lines and Capture and review.

If the warehouse set up Receiving verification items, the operator checks them (with their photos) before finishing the job. On finishing, the operator answers whether the driver leaves with the trailer: Yes, Release Dock closes the job and checks the driver out; No, Trailer Stays leaves the job in Work Finished for the supervisor to decide.

Important: today the damaged quantity is added to stock without being converted to the product's base unit (the received quantity is converted), and the form does not stop you from capturing more damaged than received. When there is damage, capture that line in the base unit and check that the damaged quantity does not exceed the received quantity.

5. Review and confirmation

The supervisor opens the Captured receipt with Review & confirm. They check quantities, discrepancies and photos, correct the Actual arrival date if the truck arrived earlier, and click Confirm receipt. If something is wrong, Return to capture sends it back with a required note.

The system will not confirm if:

the receipt is not Captured;
a line with a discrepancy has no evidence photo;
a line with a received quantity has no location;
a lot-tracked product has no lot number.

The red message says what is missing and on which product. Use Edit capture, next to Confirm receipt on the review screen (or in the three-dot menu of the receipt detail), to complete it without sending it back to the operator.

The other side of the hand-off: on confirmation the notice becomes Received and shows the confirmed receipt with its quantity.

6. The goods enter stock

On confirmation, and only then:

Each line adds its received quantity at the captured location and lot. The damaged part is included in the total but sits in the Damaged column; everything else is available.
The Actual arrival date becomes the goods' arrival date: aging and storage count from it.
Each stock line gets a Received row in its history, linked to the receipt.
The advance ship notice becomes Received.

There is no separate put-away step: the goods are born at the captured location. If they are later moved to their final place, that is a transfer. Everything that can happen to that stock afterwards is in The life of stock.

Every stock line keeps the receipt it came from: the number in the first column links back to it.

If the warehouse does not have the inventory module, the receipt is confirmed as a record (it closes the notice, bills and notifies) but creates no stock.

7. The charges that are born

Charge	When	Condition
Inbound handling	On confirmation, dated with the Actual arrival date	Only if the customer has it in their rate card. The quantity depends on how it is billed: by weight, by pallet or case (rounded up per product) or by piece.
Services billed on receipt	On confirmation	The customer's services set to be billed at receiving.
Accessorials	When captured, on the dock job or in the receipt review	See Capture an accessorial.
Storage	Every night (2:00) or on shipping, depending on the customer's mode	Counts from the arrival date, minus free days.

They all land in the unbilled services pool (Commercial › Billing) and from there into the invoice. See How charges are generated.

Important: in daily storage, a product without its "pallet" unit counts each piece as a pallet. And because a stock line's arrival date is the oldest of everything that has entered it, new goods added to an old line inherit its age and can lose free days. If the customer is billed per pallet-day, receive each inbound into its own location or lot.

8. Alerts and emails

When	To whom	How
The receipt is created (from a notice or without one)	The warehouse's configured roles (by default: worker, supervisor and admin)	Bell and live alert
The receipt becomes Captured	Supervisors	Bell and live alert
The receipt has been idle too long (checked every 15 minutes)	The configured roles	Bell
The receipt is confirmed	The customer's contacts	Email "Receipt … confirmed — your goods are now in stock", with photos if configured
The receipt is confirmed	The customer's system, if it has a callback set up	A signed callback to its web address (see Integrations)

The customer email goes out once; after that it is resent by hand with Send by Email on the receipt. Editing a confirmed receipt does not send it again. See Warehouse notifications and emails and Receipt photos, documents and email.

Important: the "overdue" alert measures time since the receipt's last change, not since the expected arrival. A receipt born from a notice for next week shows as overdue after 4 hours in Pending (the default threshold), and any save restarts the clock. Adjust your warehouse's thresholds in Warehouse notifications and emails.

9. What the customer sees

Portal › Receipts — the receipt with its status (Pending, In progress, Captured, Confirmed or Cancelled) and, when opened, Expected against Received per line. They only see the documents they uploaded.
Portal › Inventory — their stock by SKU with aging.
Emails — the receipt-confirmed email and, if enabled, the daily inventory.
Reports you send them — the Daily Warehouse Receipt List (Reports, Read Receipt Reports permission) only counts confirmed receipts, by confirmation date.

See The client portal and WMS reports.

Full example

Monday 9:10 — Northern Trading Co. sends notice ASN-CNORTE-2026-00031 from its portal: expected Tuesday, carrier Southern Logistics, trailer 45120, 2 lines: CN-1001 240 pieces and CN-2040 30 cases. Receipt CNORTE-2026-00044 is created in Pending and the bell alerts the team.
Tuesday 7:45 — The driver, Carlos Ruiz, signs in at the kiosk as Warehouse Delivery with trailer 45120. He shows up in the dock board bell.
7:52 — Ana López (supervisor) assigns him Dock 3 and Luis Pérez as the worker. In the link section the system suggests CNORTE-2026-00044 because the trailer matches; she picks it. The driver gets the message with his dock.
8:05 — Luis taps START JOB: the receipt becomes In progress. He unloads and captures: CN-1001 236 pieces at A-01-01 (4 short, with a photo); CN-2040 30 cases at A-02-04; since two cases are crushed, he captures that line in pieces: 360 received, 24 damaged (with a photo). He checks the verification items and clicks Save & send to review: the receipt is Captured and Ana gets the alert.
8:40 — Luis finishes and answers Yes, Release Dock: the job is Completed and the driver checked out.
9:15 — Ana reviews and confirms. Stock: A-01-01 gains 236 pieces of CN-1001; A-02-04 gains 360 pieces of CN-2040, 24 of them in the Damaged column and 336 available. The notice becomes Received.
9:15 — The inbound handling charge appears in unbilled services (the customer is billed per piece, so the quantity is the total received). The receipt-confirmed email goes to the customer's traffic contacts, with the photos.
9:16 — In the portal, the customer sees CNORTE-2026-00044 Confirmed, with 240 expected and 236 received on the first line, and the new pieces in their Inventory.

What can go wrong at each hand-off

Notice → receipt: the notice exists but there is no receipt.

The notice stayed in Draft. Open it and click Send to warehouse (it needs at least one line).

Notice → receipt: the operator did not see the instruction the customer wrote on the notice.

The notice's notes are not carried over to the receipt. Copy them into the notes of the receipt or the dock job.

Kiosk → dock: the driver signed in and nobody sees him in the bell.

He chose Yard Drop Off: he is on the yard screen. Or the board is open on another warehouse.

Dock → receipt: the receipt does not appear in the suggestions.

It is not for the customer you chose, it is no longer Pending or In progress, or it is already linked to another job. With no customer chosen, only receipts that match on reference or trailer are suggested.

Dock → capture: the operator started but the receipt is still Pending.

The receipt did not get linked. Check the Job Details and link it.

Capture → confirmation: the supervisor cannot confirm.

A photo is missing on a line with a discrepancy, or a location or a lot. The message says which.

Confirmation → charges: the handling charge did not appear.

The customer does not have inbound handling in their rate card. Add it; earlier receipts are not billed retroactively.

Confirmation → customer: the email did not arrive.

There are no recipients with email, or the Email channel is not checked. Fix it and use Send by Email.

Confirmation → portal: the customer sees damaged goods as available.

Today the portal only subtracts what is reserved. Explain the breakdown, or set the correct status before they ask.

Good practices

Ask your customers to notify through the portal or the API: the receipt is born with the lines and the truck details.
Always choose the customer when assigning a dock: with a customer, the link suggestions are much better.
Link when assigning, not later: the receipt then changes status by itself and the driver details arrive without typing.
Capture what arrived, not what the notice says, and document every discrepancy with a photo.
Confirm the same day, with the correct Actual arrival date.
Check the Overdue counter on the receipts list every day.

Frequently asked questions

What if the truck arrives without a notice?

The path is the same from step 2. The receipt is born at the dock (Create a new receipt when assigning, or Create receipt & link later) or in Inventory › Receipts with Create receipt. See Receiving without a notice.

What if only part of it arrives?

Confirm what arrived and, for the rest, create another receipt from the notice with Create partial receipt, which brings what is still pending per line. Note: today the notice becomes Received with the first confirmed receipt even if goods are still missing, and if you create a second partial receipt while the first is still Pending, it asks for the full quantity again. Confirm one before creating the next.

Does the driver get linked to the notice automatically?

No. The kiosk does not ask for the notice number. The supervisor makes the link when assigning a dock; the system helps by suggesting the receipt whose trailer or reference match.

Why can't my supervisor create notices?

By default, the Create Arrival Notices (ASN) permission only belongs to the admin: the notice is the customer's commitment, not the warehouse's. The supervisor can create receipts without a notice. Your admin can grant the permission to their role.

How do I undo an inbound that is already confirmed?

With Edit (the difference is applied as an adjustment) or Cancel (everything is subtracted) from the receipt, with the Confirm Receipts permission. It is not possible if that stock was already allocated, shipped or moved, or if a charge was already invoiced. Cancelling a receipt from the warehouse does not cancel its notice. See Cancel or correct a receipt.