Receiving workflow: from notice to stock

Summary

Every item that enters the warehouse goes through a receipt. The receipt records what arrived, how much, in what condition and where it was put away. It always follows the same path: it is created, an operator captures it on the floor, a supervisor reviews it and confirms it. Only confirmation puts the goods into stock, notifies the customer, stores the receipt note and generates the receiving charges.

A receipt can come from an advance ship notice (ASN) sent by the customer (from the WMS, their portal, the API or EDI), from a dock appointment, or be created directly in the warehouse when goods arrive without notice. For the whole journey, from the moment a truck is announced until the goods are available, read From notice to stock.

Before you start

What you need	Why
Receiving module enabled for the warehouse	Without it, the ASN and receipt menus do not appear. See Modules, permissions and access.
Inventory module (recommended)	Without inventory, a receipt is confirmed as a plain record: it closes the notice and emails the customer, but creates no stock and asks for no location or lot.
Billing module (optional)	Without it, confirming generates no charges.
The customer, active and set up in the warehouse	Only operational customers of the warehouse you are in appear in the pickers. See Setting up a customer.
The customer’s products	Each line is a product from that customer’s catalog. Anything that does not exist can be added as a manual item during capture. See Products and units.
Active locations	Every line with a received quantity needs a location to be confirmed. See Locations and zones.
Customer rates (if receiving is billed)	The receiving charge is only created when the customer’s rate card includes it. See Customer rates.
Contacts with email	The receipt-confirmed email goes to the customer’s chosen contacts. See Receipt confirmation email.

Where to find it

Everything related to receiving lives under the Inventory menu, in the Inbound section of the sidebar:

Inventory › Inbound (ASN) — the customers’ advance ship notices. Visible with “View Receiving” or “Create Arrival Notices (ASN)”.
Inventory › Receipts — receipts in every status. Visible with “View Receiving”, “Capture Receipts” or “Confirm Receipts”.

If you do not see these options, your warehouse does not have the receiving module or your user has none of those permissions. Also check that you are in the right warehouse with the warehouse selector at the top right.

How a receipt is created

Origin (“Origin” column)	How it is created	What is already filled in
Advance ship notice (the column shows the ASN number as a link; if there is also a dock appointment, a warehouse icon next to it)	When a notice is sent (from the WMS, the client portal, the API or EDI), the system creates a Pending receipt automatically. One notice can have more receipts through Create partial receipt.	The notice lines with their expected quantity and the notice’s transport details.
Dock appointment (blue label with a warehouse icon)	When a dock is assigned to a delivery driver, the supervisor creates or links the receipt from the assignment. See Creating a dock job.	Driver, carrier, trailer or container and seal, taken from the driver’s registration. If the dock operator filled in the receiving record, its rows arrive as lines when the job is finished.
Walk-in (yellow label with a walking person)	Someone in the warehouse clicks Create receipt on the receipts list.	Only the customer, reference, document number and date. Lines are added during capture.

See: Advance ship notices (ASN), Partial receipts and Receiving goods without a notice.

The cycle step by step

The receipt is created — through any of the paths. It starts as Pending and the configured staff are notified (except for partial receipts, which send no alert).
The operator captures — opens the receipt with Capture receipt, scans or searches each product, and records quantities, location, lot, damage and photos. Partial work can be saved with Save & continue (the receipt becomes In progress).
Sends it to review — Save & send to review moves the receipt to Captured and notifies supervisors and admins.
The supervisor reviews — opens Review & confirm, checks the capture, adds accessorials for any extra services, adjusts the actual arrival date and, if something is wrong, fixes it with Edit capture or returns it to capture with notes.
Confirms — Confirm receipt puts the goods into stock, the receipt becomes Confirmed and the customer gets their email.

The receipt’s step bar shows where it stands: Created, Capturing, Captured, Confirmed.

Tip: if your user can confirm, clicking Save & send to review takes you straight to the review screen. Users who only capture go back to the receipt detail.

Receipt statuses

Status	Meaning	What you can do
Pending	The receipt exists but nobody has started capturing.	Capture, link to a dock job, cancel.
In progress	Being captured: someone saved progress, the supervisor returned it, or the linked dock job already pushed its rows.	Continue capture, link or unlink the dock job, cancel.
Captured	The operator finished; it is waiting for supervisor review.	Review and confirm, return to capture, edit the capture, cancel.
Confirmed	The goods are in stock.	Print documents, resend the email, edit with a reason, correct the client or number, cancel (with reversal).
Cancelled	The receipt does not count. It keeps who cancelled it, when and why.	View only. It cannot be reopened.

If the linked dock job is cancelled, receipts that had only just started (In progress, capture not yet submitted) go back to Pending to be worked later.

The receipts list

Inventory › Receipts: counters at the top, search and filters, and one row per receipt with its origin, client, date, lines and status.

Counters — Pending, In progress, Captured and Overdue. They update live, without reloading the page.
Search — by part of the receipt number or the reference.
Filters — by client and status; click Filter to apply.
Columns — Receipt #, Reference #, Origin, Client, Date, Lines and Status. The eye icon opens the detail. Newest first, 30 per page.
Create receipt — opens the walk-in receipt form (requires “Capture Receipts”).

The receipt number (for example CNORTE-2026-00015) is assigned by the system from each customer’s sequence; you do not type it. Numbering is set up in Document numbers.

What confirming does, module by module

Where	What happens
Inventory	Each line adds its received quantity at the captured location, converted to the product’s base unit, as an inbound movement with the receipt as its source. The damaged quantity is set aside at the same location and is not available for picking. See Stock history and The life of stock.
Aging and storage	The Actual arrival date becomes the goods’ entry date; aging and billable storage count from it.
Advance ship notice	If the receipt came from a notice, the notice moves to Received.
Billing	If the customer’s rate card has a receiving charge (or services billed on receipt), the charges land on the Services to Invoice tab, dated with the actual arrival date. With no rate, nothing is billed. See Where each charge comes from.
Customer email	Sent once, automatically, to the chosen contacts. After that it is resent manually. See Receipt confirmation email.
Documents	With the documents module, the system generates and stores the goods receipt note PDF by itself (it shows under Generated documents). See Labels and receipt note.
Client portal	The customer sees the confirmed receipt and the new stock in their portal. See What the customer sees and when.
Integrations	If the customer’s system is connected by API with automatic notifications, it receives the `receipt.confirmed` event with the expected, received and damaged quantities of each line.
Reports and KPIs	The receipt appears in the Daily Warehouse Receipt List and counts in the receiving KPIs (on-time arrivals, receiving accuracy, damaged units, discrepancies by type). See Reading the KPI panel.
Cross-dock	If the receipt is the inbound leg of a cross-dock, the goods are reserved for their outbound on confirmation and the receiving charge is not billed here (it is billed when the outbound closes). See How a cross-dock works.

End-to-end example

Northern Trading Co. notifies from its portal that a truck arrives on Tuesday with three products: 40 cases of cookies, 120 pieces of juice and 10 bags of sugar.

Monday 4:00 pm — the customer clicks Send notice. Notice ASN-CNORTE-2026-00031 and receipt CNORTE-2026-00087 are created, the receipt Pending with three lines and their expected quantities. Workers get the alert in the bell.
Tuesday 9:10 am — Luis Pérez opens the receipt, clicks Capture receipt and scans. He counts 40 cases of cookies, 118 pieces of juice (2 short) and 10 bags of sugar, 1 of them torn. He puts everything in location REC-01, takes two photos and sends it to review.
Tuesday 9:45 am — Ana López (supervisor) gets “Receipt captured, awaiting review”. She sees the amber discrepancy banner, checks that the juice marked Short and the sugar marked Damaged have photos, leaves the actual arrival date on Tuesday and confirms.
Result — stock at REC-01 goes up by 40, 118 and 10 (with 1 bag of sugar set aside as damaged); the notice moves to Received; if the rate card bills receiving per piece, a charge for 168 units lands on Services to Invoice; the customer gets the email with the Expected/Received table and the discrepancy warning.

Special cases and limits

The load arrives in several trips — one receipt per trip, with Create partial receipt on the same notice.
One truck carries goods from several notices — the dock job can be linked to several receipts; each is captured and confirmed separately.
Warehouse without the inventory module — the receipt is confirmed, closes the notice and sends the email, but creates no stock. It does not require location or lot either (discrepancy photos are still required).
Changing the client or number — possible in any status with the amend identity permission. See Cancelling or correcting a receipt.
What you cannot do — confirm without going through Captured, reopen a cancelled receipt, unlink a confirmed receipt from its dock job, or set a future actual arrival date.

Who does what (permissions)

Permission	What it allows	Roles that have it by default
View Receiving	See notices and receipts.	Super Admin, Admin, Supervisor, Worker, Accounting
Create Arrival Notices (ASN)	Create and send notices from the WMS and create partial receipts.	Super Admin, Admin
Capture Receipts	Create walk-in receipts, capture lines, add manual items, link or unlink the dock job.	Super Admin, Admin, Supervisor, Worker
Confirm Receipts	Review, confirm, return to capture, cancel, edit a confirmed receipt, resend the email, choose the email photos.	Super Admin, Admin, Supervisor
Amend Document Identity	Change a receipt’s client or number.	Super Admin, Admin, Supervisor
Generate Documents	Print documents and upload attachments (requires the documents module).	Super Admin, Admin, Supervisor, Worker
Read Receipt Reports	Open the Daily Warehouse Receipt List.	Depends on your company’s role setup.

Roles can be adjusted in Roles and permissions.

Staff alerts and overdue receipts

The warehouse decides who hears about each step in Admin › Configuration › Notifications & email, Operational alerts section:

Operational alerts: which events notify, which roles, through which channels, and how long a receipt may sit in each status.

New arrival notice / receipt (ASN) — goes to the chosen roles when a receipt is created.
Receipt captured, awaiting review — goes only to supervisors and admins among the chosen roles.
Receipt overdue — every 15 minutes the system looks for receipts that have been Pending (4 h by default), In progress (2 h) or Captured (1 h) longer than allowed, and alerts once each time a receipt gets stuck.

Channels are in-app (bell), live, email and SMS or WhatsApp. See Notifications per warehouse.

Best practices

Ask your customers to notify in advance: the receipt is born with its lines and the operator only confirms quantities.
Capture what actually arrived, not what the notice says: a documented difference protects the warehouse.
Confirm the same day: until the receipt is confirmed, the goods cannot be picked.
If the trailer arrived before it was confirmed in the system, correct the Actual arrival date so storage is billed from the right day.
Check the Overdue counter daily and tune the thresholds to your real operation.
Give supervisors “Create Arrival Notices (ASN)” if they create partial receipts: by default only admins have it.

Troubleshooting

We unloaded the goods but they do not show in stock.

The receipt is not confirmed. Find it in Inventory › Receipts: if it is Captured, the supervisor review is missing; if it is Pending or In progress, the capture is not finished.
If it is confirmed and there is still no stock, the warehouse does not have the inventory module.

The supervisor cannot confirm: a red message appears on Confirm receipt.

The message says what is missing and for which product: an evidence photo on a discrepancy line, a location or a lot number. Use Edit capture (next to Confirm receipt) to complete it. See Reviewing and confirming.

The driver details do not appear on the receipt.

The receipt is not linked to the dock job. On the receipt detail, in the dock job card, pick the active job and click Link.

The customer says they never got the receipt-confirmed email.

Check that the customer has the email channel on and contacts with email. Then use Send by Email on the receipt detail. See Receipt confirmation email.

There is no receiving charge on Services to Invoice.

The customer’s rate card does not include the receiving service, or the receipt is the inbound leg of a cross-dock. Check Customer rates.

Frequently asked questions

What if the quantities differ from the notice?

Capture what arrived. The system compares against the expected quantity and flags the line as Short or Over-received. Every discrepancy line needs at least one evidence photo before it can be confirmed. See Discrepancies and damaged goods.

Can I receive goods without a notice?

Yes, with Create receipt on the receipts list. Capture and confirmation are the same. See Receiving goods without a notice.

When do the goods enter stock?

Only when the receipt is confirmed. While Pending, In progress or Captured, the goods do not exist in stock and cannot be reserved for a shipment.

Can I fix a receipt that is already confirmed?

Yes. The Edit button opens the same capture editor; saving asks for a reason and the changes are posted as traceable stock adjustments. You can also correct the client or number, or cancel the receipt with a reversal. See Cancelling or correcting a receipt.

What does “Overdue” mean?

Receipts that have been Pending, In progress or Captured longer than allowed. Time is measured from the receipt’s last change, so saving progress restarts the clock. Each warehouse sets the thresholds in Operational alerts.

Can the same person capture and confirm?

Yes, if they have both permissions (a supervisor has them by default). The receipt records separately who captured and who reviewed.